Pizza with home cooked tomato sauce

The big and small bosses both wanted pizza and hence, pizza we make. Hehehe...
Instead of the normal bread dough, I googled for some inspiration and ended up with this olive oil dough which is yummy, with some accidentally modification.

Ingredients for the dough:

• 1.3cups of lukewarm water
• 0.75 tablespoon of yeast
• 0.5 tablespoon of salt
• 0.5 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1/8 cup of extra virgin olive oil
• 4cups of self raising flour (this is the accident)
• 1/2 cup flour for kneading or shaping use

Method:

1. Premix all the ingredients in a bowl, except the flour.
2. Have the flour in the magimix and slowly add in those wet ingredients till they mix well. Let the mixture mix for about 5mins. 
3. Take it out and leave it in a container with cover to rest (not air tight) for roughly 2 hours.
4. Take it out, give it some "boxing" and kneading. Refrigerate overnight if possible, otherwise at least for 2-3hours. 
5. And it is ready to use. Take the amount required and flatten it. Give the bottom of the pan or paper or pizza stone a spray of olive oil before putting on the pizza dough. This will avoid sticking and gives the dough a soft fluffy taste.

For the topping, I have some home cooked tomato sauce and other toppings like mushroom, pepperoni, sliced chilli, fresh spinach leaves, surimi.

To prepare the tomato sauce (if you want enough for the above):

Ingredients:

• 8cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 10 tomatoes (leave it in a pot of boiling water for about 3-5mins to help removed the skin), cut and chopped, keep about 1cup of the water
• 3 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 1/8 teaspoon of pepper
• 1 tablespoon of brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• 2 tablespoon of finely chopped bacon

Methods:

1. Saute the bacon and garlic with the olive oil till the bacon is crispy and brown (medium high fire).
2. Add in the chopped tomatoes and season with the rest of the ingredients. Add in the water from the tomato and simmer it for about 5-10mins.
3. If you like your sauce to have the tomato texture, use it directly. Otherwise, you can blend them till smooth before using it to smear all over the top of the pizza dough.

Bake Chicken Nugget

A friend had posted her nuggets in facebook and that reminded me to give it a try again and indeed, it tasted yummylicious except that I make a small mistake, I should have let the ginger and onion blend till fine first coz the girl detected them and kinda reject it.. :(

Ingredients:

• 400g chicken breast (approximately coz I'm not quite sure the weight too.. hehehe)
• half a small apple (for the moisture and yummy texture)
• one small onion (yellow)
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 1/4 teaspoon of cumin powder
• 4 small slices of ginger (really small pieces)
• a pinch of pepper
• 2 tablespoon of shredded cheddar cheese
• 1.5 cups of bread crumbs (for coating) + a pinch of salt + a pinch of freshly grounded pepper + a pinch of curry powder
• 2 eggs, lightly beat (for coating)
• olive oil for baking

Methods:

1. Mixed all the ingredients except those for coating in the blender and mix it till even. It does not need to be super fine caused you will want to have some texture for the nugget. But like in my case, do blend the onion and ginger in advance so that it is fine caused some kids can be quite sensitive and detect those flavour on its own.
2. Spray some olive oil on the tray lined with baking sheets. Preheat oven at 180C.
3. Wet you palm, scooped bout 2 teaspoon amount of the mixture on your palm and for the shapes you like. 
4. Dip the shape into the egg and then to the breadcrumbs. Lined them on the sheets.
5. Once all done, spray the top of the nuggets with oil and bake at 150C for 20-25mins. I sprayed a little more oil on the nuggets after 10mins baking to avoid it from getting too dry.
6. Served with ketchup or any sauce of your choice.. :D

Home Made Ramen

I love ramen and so does the little girl. Since this week, I managed to get the chicken carcass and pork bones, we are cooking ramen today.

For the broth:
Ingredients:

• 2 chicken carcass, roughly 300g
• 1 pork ham leg, roughly 800g
• 3 tablespoon of salt
• 1 onion, cut to 4wedges
• 6pcs of garlic, smashed with skin intact
• a pinch of crushed pepper
• 8 slices of ginger
• 1.5l water

Methods:

Washed the chicken carcass with salt (scrub) and hot water. Rinse the pork leg with hot water. This is to remove all the dirt and smell if there is any.

As usual, I try to save some gas or electricity, so I used the thermos cooker. Dump all ingredients in, bring it to boil on high and then lower the fire and leave it to boil for 25mins. Moved it into the thermos cooker. Leave it overnight. Boil it again for another 25mins on the next morning and I uses it on the next day though the recipe I found online cook it for 2-3days. It is really up to you how thick and flavourful you want the broth to be. Anyway, no salt for the soup since I'm using the pork ham leg that is already salty.

For the noodle, the original recipe found online asked for kan sui (alkaline water) but I dont have it and dont like it, so I'm using egg yolk and soda bicarbonate to substitute it.

Ingredients:

• 600g of bread flour
• 4 egg yolk
• 300ml water
• 1/2tablespoon of soda bicarbonate

Methods:

1. Pulse the bread flour and soda bicarbonate with the yolks, one by one. 
2. Add in the water, little by little caused you don't want the mixture to be too moist. The dough should be crumbly and gravel like.
3. Remove the dough from the mixer. Use the hand to press the mixture together to form proper dough balls. I have bout 8 balls. 
4. Flatten each ball and run it through the largest setting of your pasta roller a few times, folding it each time. Do it till the dough is smooth out. 
5. Fold it till square and stack up in a container, covered with wet towels. Store it in the fridge. The recipe called it for overnight, but I had it for about 5hrs.
6. Use the pasta roller and use the thinner setting to flatten the dough. Then use the pasta machine to cut the dough. I had two types, one the thinner one for the girls, at her request and the thicker one for us.
7. Upon cutting up the noodles, dry them on rack or hang it on the chopstick to dry. Now with the cool weather, it takes about 20mins to dry them up.
8. After drying, you can either cook it directly in a pot of boiling water or store it in the fridge. But prior to storing, do dust with some flour. Since it is dried, it requires a lot lesser flour to keep them apart. 
9. On the cooking part, after cooking it on the boiling water for about 3mins, pour the noodle into cold water to give it a springy taste.

My Version of Bimbimbap

After looking at someone posted her bimbimbap on Facebook, I felt like eating it, but since I'm not a fan and dont quite like bean sprout, let's do without it and have this instead.

Ingredients (to make two plate of medium eater):

• 1 cup of rice, cooked like normal
• a handful of choy sum (washed, cut to small pieces and you can either blanch in hot water or lightly fry in oil)
• a handful of julienned carrot (either blanch in hot water or lightly fry in oil)
• a handful of chinese cabbage (either blanch in hot water or lightly fry in oil)
• 250g of sliced pork (marinated in Korean BBQ sauce for at least 30mins in advance)
• 2 eggs (sunny side up)
• 1 tablespoon of soy sauce (for the sauce)
• 1 teaspoon of brown sugar (for the sauce)
• 2 teaspoon of sushi rice vinegar (for the sauce)
• 1 tablespoon of chopped spring onions (for the sauce)
• 3 cloves of minced garlic (for the sauce)
• 3 tablespoon of siracha chilli sauce (for the sauce)

Methods:

1. Prepared the rice and vegetables and arranged them either on a bowl or plate (your preference).
2. Pan friend the marinated sliced pork with a little oil till cooked, and arrange it on the plate too.
3. Top the arrangement with a sunnyside up egg.
4. Mixed all the ingredients for the sauce together and pour over.
5. Served. To eat, mix everything evenly and bon apetit.

Westernized Otak Otak

Not sure what got into me, I just got a bit bored with pan frying the fish fillet and wanted something different, so I ended up with a westernized version of otak otak.

Ingredients:

• 300g of basa fish fillet
• quarter carrot, cut to smaller pieces to be able to blend easier
• a handful of spinach
• a handful of shredded cheddar
• 2-3 cubes of ice
• a pinch of salt
• a pinch of pepper
• 1 teaspoon of curry powder
• 1 teaspoon of tumeric powder

Methods:

1. Mix all ingredients in the blender and blend till the fish turn pasty and ice is well crushed.
2. Scooped paste on aluminium foil and shaped and keep in fridge.
3. Either pan fried with a little oil or covered in foiled and bake in oven at 180C for 20mins.

The picture above is served with some salad leaves and pan fried potato slices.

Milo Muffin Brownie

With Easter round the corner and lots of egg chocolate in the fridge from the Easter Egg hunt the kindy organised last week, I decided to do the Milo Muffin Brownie. I had been collecting some egg shells and decided to use it as mold for the girl's snack while the rest go into the muffin tin, with the yummy chocolate eggs as the filling.

Ingredients:

• 113g butter
• 160g brown sugar
• 2 tablespoon of milo
• 2 eggs
• 90g flour
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• a pinch of salt
• mini chocolate eggs (qty depending to how many of the muffins you want to have it with the chocolate in it)

Methods:

1. Preheat oven at 180degree celcius.
2. Cream butter and sugar till creamy. Add in milo and continue mixing till even.
3. Slowly add on one by one egg and mix till even.
4. Add in vanilla essence, flour and salt slowly while mixing.
5. Scooped the batter to the mold, either the egg shell or the muffin tin.
6. Insert the chocolate egg in the middle of the mixture.
7. Bake for 15-20mins at 180C. Check if it is done with the skewer.

Savoury Pumpkin Muffin

Yes, another muffin recipe again. This time, it is savoury with lots of healthy goodness in it. It has pumpkin, spinach, cheese and onion. This is so yummy... taste better than the sweet version I think.. hehehe...

Ingredients:

• 2 cups self raising flour
• 1 large egg (beaten)
• 1/4 cup of olive oil
• 1.5 cup of milk
• 1/8 cup of julienned mini red radish
• 3/4 cup of shredded cheddar
• 1/2 cup of chopped pumpkin + 1/2 cup of shredded pumpkin
• 1/2 cup of shredded spinach

Methods:

1. Preheat oven at 180C.
2. Mixed all the ingredients together except the flour. Mix till it is well blended.
3. Then add in the flour and give it a quick fold.
4. Scoop batter into the muffin pan, 24 minis here... (I lightly oil the tin)
5. Bake for 25mins at 180C.