Potato Salad with Japanese Mayo and Pine Nuts

This is one of my new creation and I eat this as a light meal on my meatless day or serve as a side salad with burgers.  As I found that having a potato salad with just potato is too plain, by adding some greens into it adds more fibre and the pine nuts simply is a nice garnish with a bit of a crunch.  I choose to use Japanese Mayonnaise because it has a full flavour of whole egg, bears in mind though it has 80% of fat so don't over dressing it as I know it is hard not to!  My sister fed her fussy 2 years old with this salad and she just sat quietly and ate them all.

Potato Salad with Japanese Mayo and Pine Nuts

4-5 baby potatoes
a bowl of leafy mix (fancy lettuce, baby spinach leaves, rockets and beetroot leaves)
a small handful of pine nuts, toasted
Japanese Mayonnaise
salt and coarse black pepper to taste

Method:

1. Peel the skin of the potatoes (you can leave the skin if you wish) and cut into cubes.  Cook the potatoes cubes into boiling water until cooked.  If you can poke a fork into the cubes, it is ready.
2. Drain the water and leave the potatoes cool.  Rinse the leafy mix with water and drain as well.
3. Put the leafy mix and potatoes into a big bowl.  Add the pine nuts and mayo.  Seasoned with salt and coarse black pepper before serving.  Enjoy!

Thai Style King Crab Salad

One year we went to Japan, our tour guide helped us to order some snow crab from Hokkaido express down to Tokyo.  We had watched many travel shows talking about how tasty the crab was so we didn't want to miss the chance while we were in Japan.  The crab was cooked and came with a pair of scissor to help cutting the shell.  It was one of the unforgettable moment we had in our trip.

I'd seen live Australian king crab in some Asian restaurants or in the aquarium but I'd never tasted it.  
The first time I saw it selling at Coles, I was wondering it would taste as good as the snow crab as both of them live in the cold region.  This crab salad hadn't disappointed us, the meat was not as strong as the mud crab but had more flavour than sand crab, it's flaky and sweet.  I like to serve mud crab as a hot dish and king crab is better to serve cold.

The importance of cooking Thai food is to balance the sweet and sour flavour, I do not have an exact measurement for this recipe as it's all up to your taste buds to tell you what to put in.

Thai Style King Crab Salad

King Crab claws (cooked)
cucumber
onion
chilli
coriander
mint
lime
salt & pepper
fish sauce

Method:
Remove crab meat from the shell.  Finely cut cucumber and onion, marinate with salt, then rinse and drain.  Squeeze out juice and add to the crab meat.  Add the chopped up the coriander, mint and chilli, seasoned with fish sauce, pepper, lime juice and sugar.  Serve cold.


   

Easter Bunny Popsticks

There is only a week away from Easter, this year I'm making chocolate bunny to give to people instead of store brought Easter eggs.  I found this "Make your own Easter Gifts" pack from IGA supermarket at $10.  It includes all the things you needed to make 12 chocolate bunnies.  I buy more chocolate melts and have been making many bunnies (I do lost count how many I've made as I eat some along the way...)

I have been experiment different flavour, and I like the Hundred & Thousand Bunny and Milk top bunny the most.  The pure white choc bunny takes longer time to set and it doesn't keep well at room temperature.  It would be great to have more mould so it would take me faster to do the job.  I found that reheating the melted chocolate is not good, so I put the extra chocolate into other chocolate mould to make something else rather than washing if off.  In my first lot of chocolate, I forget to press medium on the microwave and burn my chocolate so please be careful and never overheat the chocolate!

Aren't those bunnies adorable?  They're so easy to make and you should try it!

Happy Easter!

Easter Bunny Popsticks
(make 4 each)

For the milk chocolate bunny:
120g milk chocolate
Hundred & Thousand sprinkles

For the milk top bunny:
30g white chocolate
90g milk chocolate

Method:

1. Wipe the mould clean with paper. 
2. Melt chocolate in a microwave safe bowl on medium heat for 1 minute, then 30 second on medium heat until the chocolate is all melted. 
3. Use a spoon to spoon chocolate into each mould until half full.  Place a popstick into each mould, then tap onto the table to ease the air.  Fill with more chocolate and tap again.  Don't over fill and top with hundred & thousand sprinkles.  Wipe clean and put into fridge for 15 minutes or until set.  
4. For the milk top bunny: melt white chocolate on medium heat until melted.  Spoon chocolate into mould, tap off air and then put into fridge to set.  Meanwhile, melt the milk chocolate on medium heat and lay a popstick into each mould.  Spoon the milk chocolate over the milk chocolate and keep in the fridge for about an hour or until set.

White Chocolate Fairy Cupcakes

Princesses and fairies, didn't we grown up from these lovely imagination?  When my daughter was little, she would wear her princess dress and crown to the shopping centre.  Everyone would waved at my little SnowWhite.  Her dress up box were filled with costumes, fairy wands and wings.  When her little friends came over for a play, they all dress up and became princesses or fairies from the far far away land.

I also become the fairy, the tooth fairy when my kids lose their baby teeth.  Kids wake up in the morning would find their teeth replaced by gold coins.  One time, my daughter lost her tooth into the drain while brushing her teeth. We wrote a little note to the tooth fairy to explain everything and luckily she found it and a gold coin was rewarded.  I often told them to brush their teeth probably because bad teeth would be taken by goblins.  I would soon retired from being the tooth fairy as my daughter had grown up and my son only has a few teeth to lose.  However,  I probably will be the Easter buddy and Mrs Santa for a long  time.

This white chocolate fairy cupcake had brought back many sweet memories to me..... and I made them for one of our staff's birthday because she had been a sweetheart to us.


White Chocolate Fairy Cupcakes
(make 12)

125g butter, softened
125g caster sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
125g self-raising flour
75g white choc chips
1 tablespoon milk

Topping and filling:
strawberry jam
thickened cream, whipped
strawberries, halves
edible glitter
mini sugared love hearts

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 190c. Place paper cases into a 12 hole muffin tin.
2. Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy, add beaten eggs and vanilla essence until well mix.
3. Add in sifted flour and fold it into the mixture, stir in white choc chips. Add a tablespoon of milk or a little more to make a soft, dropping mixture.
4. Spoon the mixture into muffin cases until 2/3 full.  Bake for 15 minutes or until a light golden brown.
5. Cool in wire-rack.  When the cake is completely cooled, use a knife to cut along the top of the cake, take the top out and fill the inside with strawberry jam and cover the top.
6. Pipe the cream onto the cake starting from the side of the cake, topped with strawberries or love hearts, then sprinkle with glitter. Magic may be coming on its way!

Banana cake to share with my neighbour

This banana cake is so moist and you must use four cavendish bananas and not less for the recipe.  I've used two bananas or added chopped walnuts and it got too dry or too lumpy to eat.  The best is to add a few walnuts on top and keep it as simple as it is.  Nice to go along with a cuppa and it really remind me of the banana cake we had in Hong Kong.

I took this freshly baked cake to visit my neighbour for morning tea.  He was diagnosed with a very rare cancer and undergoing chemo. His taste buds were gone but he could taste the bananas of this cake.  I'm so pleased that he enjoyed my baking. It's only a little thing I could do to cheer him and his wife up. His wife had just recovered from cancer a few years ago and they decided to retire and enjoyed life a bit more. Unfortunately, bad luck has come along for them! Let's hope thing will get better for them after the treatments and God bless for them.
 

Simple Banana Cake

4 ripes bananas, mashed
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1/3 cup butter, melted
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/4-1/2 cup milk
a pinch of salt
3 walnuts (optional)

Method:

1. Preheat the oven at 175c. Sift plain flour and bicarbonate of soda in a bowl.
2. Combine butter, egg, sugar and vanilla in another bowl, add the mashed banana, milk, salt, then add the flour mixture.  Stir till well combined.
3. Pour the mixture into a paper lined loaf tin. Top cake with three walnuts.  Bake for 45 minutes or until the skewer comes out clean after inserting into the cake.

Source: banana cake from Christine's Recipes

Perfect Poached Eggs

On the Sunday Market, there usually a stall run by the local community group selling sausage in bread or bacon & egg burger for fundraising.  Egg is a cheap food with lots of nutrient.  We love a big breakfast which consists of egg, bacon, sausage, toasted bread with tomato and mushroom for brunch or lunch on a lazy Sunday.

I have to thank Julie Goodwin for her advice in her cookbook, Our family table on how to make perfect poached eggs as I have given up making poached eggs so long ago.  I think it's such a fuss playing with something so soft with hot water. She has a simple way to do to make a smooth egg with running yolk and if I'm not beware of my cholesterol, I could eat more than one egg! Opps!

Julie also mentioned that there are so many names for poached egg breakfast such as eggs Benedict is served with ham and English muffin in hollandaise sauce, eggs Royale is served with smoked salmon and eggs Florentine is served with spinach.  I prefer my poached eggs with bacon with low fat honey mustard sauce on toasted turkish bread. What about you?

Perfect Poached Eggs

1. Pour water into a large non-stick deep pan till it is about 4cm of water (that would be enough to cover the egg), bring to the boil then lower the heat so the water is barely simmering. 
2. Crack one egg gently on the side of the pan and carefully lower it into the water with a spatula.  Then leave the egg by itself as the egg will gather the bilk of its white to itself and don't worry about the stringy floaty bits.
3. Crack another egg and do the same. Julie suggests you can cook 4 eggs at a time but I only do one or two at a time. You need to strain the water or replaced with fresh one after few batches.
4. After 3 minutes or when the egg whites looks cook through, lift the egg out with a slotted spoon  and drain the excess water.  Slide them straight onto the serving plate.   

Last Minutes Almond Cookies for Chinese New Year (賀年杏仁餅)

Happy Chinese New Year!  If you are still busy preparing dinner for today but still want to make some homemade cookies to celebrate CNY, this is an easy recipe that don't need any cookies cutter, roasting and grounding nuts or jam making.  And I can tell you these last minutes cookies taste better than the one that needs lots of effort to prepare!

祝大家新春大吉，萬事如意

Chinese Almond Cookies (杏仁酥餅)
(make about 45)

120g almond meal
180g plain flour
60g caster sugar
60g icing sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
3/4 cup canola oil
beaten egg for brushing
almond flakes (optional)

Method:

1. Preheat oven at 180c. Lined baking trays with baking paper. 
2. Sift the flour, icing sugar, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda into the mixing bowl, add the almond meal, sugar and salt. Combine all the dry ingredients and make a well in the middle.  Gradually add oil to form a moist dough, add a little oil about 1 tablespoon at a time if needed until you shape into balls. 
3. Roll cookies dough into small balls and press slightly with the back of a fork. Brush with egg and topped with almond flakes, then brush with more egg over.  Bake for 15-20 minutes.

Note: The original recipe uses 120g caster sugar, it works well as well if you don't want to use two different types of sugar.

Source: adopted and modified from The Kitchen 70's