Test-drive and the actual race: Orange flavored cupcakes

I will always remember how I celebrated Children's Day when I was still in primary school.  On the eve of Children's Day, we would gather in the school hall for assembly and watch a Children's Day Concert put up by fellow pupils from the various performing ECA (back then it was known as ECA, extra curricular activities) groups.  At the end of the concert, all of us would stand up and sing along to some songs, songs which I have no idea why these were chosen to be sung as a way to celebrate Children's Day.  What were some of those songs?  Di Tanjong Katong and Chan Mali Chan were two songs we sang every year.  Imagine I sang these two songs for six years on two occasions each year, National Day celebration and Children's Day celebration!  ^_^  It may not had made much sense to me back then, but now hearing these songs warms the heart because now I had categorized these as my childhood songs.  Every time I hear them, I'll always recall how my school hall looked like and remember a fuzzy happy feeling: the anticipation of Children's Day celebration we would be having back in our classroom.  The final one hour on the eve of Children's Day was always reserved for a little in-class party.  This precious one hour was set aside by our form teacher for all of us to celebrate with games and food.  I would always request Mum to make something for me to contribute as party food.  And Mum would always make pandan chiffon cake for me to bring along.  So when my girl requested me to bake something for her class party on the final day of the school term, I agreed without hesitation.  We toyed around a couple of ideas before finally deciding on cupcakes and cookies.  Cookies and cupcakes are not difficult items to prepare and most importantly, relatively easy to handle, that is for my girl to carry them to school without too much worry of damage.

I have a couple of cupcake recipes that will make 12 cupcakes with roughly 3 inch diameter in size.  But I think that would be a little too big for children, especially when they would be having other nibbles and snacks.  So I decided on converting a butter cake recipe that I always liked to use into cupcake size.  I didn't want to use the usual 3 inch diameter paper cupcakes casing that I always do, so I got hold of some souffle cups that are 2.5 inch in diameter and 1.5 inch in height.  Since I'll be using a new cupcake casing measurement, a test-drive was necessary.

Test-drive

On the day that I tested out this recipe, I halved the original butter cake recipe and that produced 8 souffle cups of cupcakes.  But I think I filled the cup too much and some of the cakes overflowed (that means I could get more than 8 cupcakes for a halved portion).  See the picture below, the cupcake on the forefront, to the left side of the cup.  That's where the batter flowed out.  The butter cake recipe I used applies egg separation method, so that was probably why the batter overflowed.  For this recipe, I added orange zest, since it was intended to be orange flavored cupcakes, and I also added about 1.5 tsp of strawberry jam as filling.  I didn't have much expectation, just the hope that these cupcakes would turn out tasting acceptable.  But much to my surprise, the combination of butter, orange and strawberry actually tasted great.  The sprinkling of chocolate rice also added another layer of texture (the chocolate rice remained slightly crunchy) and flavor to the cupcakes.

We had these cupcakes for breakfast the following day, and the kids loved this combination too.  However, the strawberry jam filling did not stay at the middle of each cupcake even though I made it a point to put in the jam near to 2/3 full position.  I suppose the jam is simply too heavy and upon heating up sank to the bottom.  But at least these did not sink all the way to the bottom!

Actual race

Having done a test on taste, appearance and quantity, I felt more at ease and confident of producing 30 cupcakes for my girl's party.  30 cupcakes may be just a piece of cake (what a pun here ^_^ Not intentional!) to many people, but to me, this is not an easy feat.  It meant that I have to be prepared to make at least 2 batches, maybe 3 batches in case one of the batches failed for whatever reason, throughout the day.  Just to recapitulate on the calculation, halved portion of butter cake will probably give me 10 cupcakes using the souffle cups I bought.  That means whole portion of my butter cake recipe should give me 20 cupcakes.  That means if everything goes well, I just need to make 2 batches, once in the morning, once in the afternoon.  And to cut the whole story short, that was exactly what I did.  Which was pretty lucky for me as all the cupcakes behaved well (meaning I did not overfill each cup), no overflowing, no shortage of strawberry jam or chocolate rice (^_^ I worry too much, I am getting to be a hypochondriac!).  The only problem I had was with slightly deflated cupcakes.  The two pictures below are actually the same, but I was just toying with them with a photo editing software.  I love how the cupcakes had rose, such smooth dome they had.  But unfortunately, these cakes sank a little after removal from the oven.  But again, fortunately, the reduction wasn't too much as the top of each cupcake still stay near the rim of the casing.

Once the cupcakes were completely cooled, my girl and I spent about an hour packing them into little cookie bags together with some butter cookies I made in advance.  While the packing job was very tiring (we did that after dinner, around 8pm), it was actually very satisfying to see my bakes neatly allocated and packed in cute looking bags, ready for 28 children and 2 teachers to enjoy.  I wondered if my Mum had felt this way more than 20 years ago when she put her pandan chiffon cake into a container for me to carry it all the way to school to be shared with my classmates and teachers. 

Cupcakes and cookies, all packed and ready!

Same picture, just toying with my editing software.

My cupcake peeking out at me!

Orange flavored cupcakes 

Makes 20 souffle cups measuring 2.5" diameter, 1.5" height

Ingredients

Group 1

250g salted butter, I tried a new label called Gold Leaf

85g caster sugar

200g cake flour

1 tsp baking powder

4 egg yolks

1.5 tsp orange flavor

Zest of 2 oranges

2 tbsp low fat yoghurt

Group 2

85g caster sugar

4 egg whites

Filling

Strawberry or raspberry jam

Method

1. Preheat oven to 160deg C.

2. Make sure butter and eggs are at room temperature.  Sift cake flour and baking powder together and set aside.

3. Beat butter and caster sugar from Group 1 until light and fluffy. 

4. Add in the egg yolks one at a time, making sure that each yolk is well beaten in before the next addition.

5. Add the orange flavor and orange zest and beat until well mixed.

6. Fold in the flour mixture, spoon by spoon, until all are used up and well mixed into a smooth batter.

7. In a clean bowl, process Group 2 in the following manner.  Beat the egg whites until foamy, add the caster sugar and beat until soft peaks form.

8. Add 1/3 of egg white mixture into butter batter in Step 6 and fold until incorporated (or no streaks of egg white is visible).  Fold in the remaining egg whites until well incorporated and smooth.

9. Gently fold in the 2 tbsp of low fat yoghurt until well incorporated (i.e. no streaks of yoghurt is visible).

10. Fill each up with batter until about 2/3 full, drop in gently 1 tsp of preferred jam and top with batter until 3/4 full.

11. Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes or until an inserted skewer comes out clean.

I am submitting this post to Aspiring Bakers #13: Enjoy Cupcakes! (November 2011) hosted by Min of Min's Blog.

Friday's Special #4: Slow cooking cidered pork with pasta aglio olio

Slow cooking cidered pork with paster aglio olio

We had a simple affair for dinner on a Friday two weeks ago .  I'd chosen a slow cooking one pot dish to make just so that I get a little more time to relax and maybe catch up on my television watching.  From "The Complete Slow Cooker" book, I'd chosen a pork dish with an ingredient that I am totally not familiar with; it is dry cider.  I had no idea how it would taste, or what it looked like.  I had wondered if it had anything to do with apple cider vinegar.  Of course I turned to the net to find out what this was.  It's practically the one and only help I turn to every time a strange looking ingredient made me stumble and hesitate in attempting a recipe.

And so what is dry cider, and does it have any slightest connection with apple cider vinegar?  Well, yes and no.  Yes, because apple cider vinegar is made from cider, which in turn almost always comes from apples.  And no, because dry ciders are not vinegar, simple as that.  Dry ciders just meant that the natural sugar has been fermented out, which means it is not sweet, or for some brands, not that sweet.  Pardon my ignorance, but to my surprise, dry ciders actually has an alcohol content of between 5%-7%.  I'd also found out that dry ciders are usually used as a beverage rather than an ingredient in cooking.  These bits of information really aroused my curiosity about this slow cooking dish and how it might taste.  Just in case I could not find dry cider in the supermarket I had in mind to visit, I'd also found out that apple cider can be used as a substitute but there is a need to cut back on the sugar in the recipe.

I went to the supermarket which boast of its selection of imported international food products.  That means there is a high chance of finding dry ciders there.  True enough, I found it.  It came in a large glass bottle, 1 litre to be precise.  The bottle was green in color, making it look like a bottle of beer.  Naturally, I procured one bottle, got back home, poured myself a glass and took a sip.  Pondered on the taste.  Not very fruity as I thought it might be.  No subtle taste of apples, maybe my tongue was not sensitive enough for delicate things.  Bubbly, yes.  Like sparkling wine, but not sweet.  So much for my anticipation; mystery demystified.
On with putting my slow cooking cidered pork together.  I bought a large chunk of pork shoulder butt weighing about 750g from my favorite butcher in the wet market.  I love to use shoulder butt as mince meat.  I find them more juicy then using lean meat, but of course there is the fats to get rid of before using them.  For this dish, I had to curve out the fats and sinews (a bit of a tricky knife job) before cutting it into cubes for cooking.  One of the best ways to curve out the sinews is to slide the knife as close to the sinew as possible and run it along the sinews.  Something I picked up from watching Jamie Oliver cook. 

Curving out the sinew

Next is to chop up all the vegetables into bite size chunks, even though the recipe calls for the vegetables to be diced.  I didn't want the vegetables to end up losing their shapes.  Apart from cutting the vegetables and processing the meat into roughly 1.5 inch chunks, there really is nothing much to prepare to get this dish together.  The only thing left to do is to brown the meat and fry up the vegetables before chucking the whole mixture into the slow cooker.  The rest of the job, my trusty slow cooker will take over for the next 9 hours.


Slow cooking cidered pork   
(Recipe from "The Complete Slow Cooker: Packed with recipes, techniques and tips", Sara Lewis, Hamlyn, 2010)
Ingredients
1 tbsp vegetable sunflower oil (I used corn oil)
750g pork shoulder steaks cubed and any fat discarded
1 leek, thinly sliced; white and green parts kept separated
2 tbsp plain flour (to thicken the liquid)
300ml dry cider (substitute with apple cider, reduce sugar)
300ml chicken stock
200g carrots, diced (I just chunk them into bite size)
1 dessert apple, cored and diced (I used red Fuji apple from China, chunked)
2-3 stems sage
salt and pepper


Method
1. Heat oil in frying pan, add the pork a few pieces at a time until all the pieces are in the pan, then fry over a high heat until lightly browned.
2. Lift the pork out of the pan with a slotted spoon and transfer it to the slow cooker pot.
3. Add the white leek slices to the pan and fry for 2-3 minutes or until softened.  Stir in the flour, then gradually mix in the cider and the stock.

This is the appearance of Step 3 before adding liquid.  After liquid is added,
need to stir continuously as lumps will form.

4. Add the carrot, apple, sage and some salt and pepper.  Bring to the boil, stirring continuously.  Stirring continuously is necessary as I find that the flour formed quite a number of lumps when liquid is added.  I used a whisk to help in breaking up the lumps.

This is how Step 4 looks like.  I love the colors!

5. Pour the mixture into the slow cooker pot, cover with the lid and cook at LOW for 9-10 hours.  In the last 15 minutes, add salt and pepper to taste, add the green part of the leeks and cook until softened.


I made pasta aglio olio to go with this slow cooking meat dish.  I had intended to spend a bit of time catching up on my television programmes, I had opted for a simple carbohydrate dish to accompany this meat dish.  The ingredient for this accompaniment is very basic and easy to gather.  Olive oil, good quality, if it can be afforded.  I just use extra virgin olive oil bought from my neighbourhood supermarket.  Garlic, chili (I used chili padi) and pasta.  Actually, so much being said about wanting to keep things easy to give myself time to stay attached to the goggle box, I just wanted to try out a recipe in another of my list of cookbooks ^_^  For the pasta shapes, I used a mixture of two types of pasta: fusilli and spaghetti.  The Hubby likes spaghetti and the kids love fusilli, they think spaghetti is boring.  The pasta tasted okay, the chili gave it a bit of heat which proved a little too spicy for the kids.  And after eating the pasta, I think salt has to be added in the process of making the olive oil sauce.  It tasted too bland and the amount of salt added to the water to cook the pasta was not enough.  


My Pasta Aglio Olio
(adapted from "Pasta with garlic, chilli & pine nuts" in "Pasta: 100 Great Recipes", Jacqueline Bellafontaine, Silverdale Books, 2005)
Ingredients
400g pasta (mixed shapes)
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 red chillies, seeded and chopped 


Method
1.  Cook the pasta in plenty of lightly salted boiling water according to cooking instructions on the pasta packaging.  I like mine al dente, so I normally cook my pasta for about 8 minutes.
2. In the meantime, heat the olive oil and saute the garlic for 2-3 minutes.  Before turning off the flame, sprinkle in the chilli and stir around a couple of times.  I do it this way to prevent releasing too much heat from the chilli, I just wanted a hint of heat but this is still a little too spicy for the kids. 
3. Keep about a small cup of cooking liquid before draining the pasta.  Add the pasta into the frying pan of garlic and chilli infused olive oil, toss to coat evenly.  If it is a little dry, add 1-2 tbsp of the cooking liquid.  
4. Serve immediately.

See the mixture of spaghetti and fusilli?
Just to satisfy the Tiny Man, the girl and the Hubby.

Notes:
* Next time I make this pasta again, remember to add in some salt to the oil as it tasted pretty bland apart from the garlic and chilli.

Slow cooking Chicken Mussaman Curry

I love visiting book fairs and would not miss out any one of these if I can help it.  If these fairs happen to be on weekdays, then I cannot help it but give them a miss.  Luckily these fairs are usually still on during weekends and held over at the Singapore Expo, which is near where my in-laws live.  That means I can "park" my children with Mum-in-law and shop for books!  

It was at one of these fairs that I bought a book totally on stir-fry dishes.  Actually it was the Hubby who found the book.  Since it's stir-fry, it featured many Asian, mostly Chinese-styled stir-fries.  But quite a number of the recipes also feature Thai ingredients, especially curries.  There are recipes for red, green and yellow curries.  One of the more unusual curries (at least for me) in this book is the Mussaman curry or Massamun curry.  I found out that both meant the same thing, sometimes being spelt as Matsaman curry.  

A picture from the second attempt, slow cooking style

It looked suspiciously like a Thai curry, or at least a Southeast Asian rendition of a curry that might have originated from India.  The picture in the stir-fry cookbook I bought featured a really appetizing looking curry, not glaringly red, but one with a tinge of orange.  It didn't look so spicy, something my two kids might enjoy.  One of the ingredients is of course the mussaman curry paste.  I don't remember seeing such a paste for sale in the supermarkets I usually visit.  So I searched the net for some information on this interesting looking curry and a recipe to make this paste.  This is what I found:


Massaman curry  (kaeng matsaman) is a southern Thai dish that is Muslim in origin.  It is most commonly made with beef, but other meats like duck, chicken and pork (for non-Muslims) may also be used.  The curry is cooked with coconut milk (much like all the curries that I usually eat), and roasted peanuts or cashew nut are added.  


The nuts seems to be an interesting texture to add to a curry.  But the ingredients and the method to prepare the paste is a little challenging for me.   There are simply too many spices and herbs to gather, some had to be roasted, others chopped or sliced before all of them can be pulverized or grind into a paste.  I have decided that this is one paste that I will definitely procrastinate making manually.  Anyway, just to keep a record of what I had dug out for the paste recipe, this is the site to visit for Massaman Curry Paste.  And in case it goes missing or information got lost or whatever mishap which I wish would not ever happen, this is the recipe jotted down into my blog:


Massaman curry paste
1 tbsp coriander seeds, roasted
1 tsp cumin seeds, roasted
1/2 tsp grated nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
4 oz (about 100g) shallots, finely chopped
1 oz (about 25g) garlic, finely chopped
4 oz lemongrass (bottom part of stem only), finely sliced
1 tbsp sliced galangal
1 tbsp chopped coriander root
1 tsp grated kaffir lime rind
1 tsp ground white pepper
10-15 large red chillies, roasted, seeded and chopped
1 tbsp coarse sea salt
1-2 tbsp Thai shrimp paste


Method: (my understanding) basically pound/grind everything except the shrimp paste very finely, into a paste, no chili pieces should be visible.  Once this is done, mash in the shrimp paste with a pestle.  


To me, this is a hell of a job.  But I want to make this curry.  And so, I made it a point to keep my eyes peeled for massaman curry paste whenever I shop at any supermarket.  Of course I could visit the Little Thailand at Beach Road, but being a stay-at-home Mum, I stayed at home, or rather near home, most of the time.  During weekends, I usually do not have any business visiting town or any area near town.  And so, days thinking about making massaman curry fly past until the June holidays. 
We went to Bangkok for holidays this June and guess what, I found the "elusive" massaman curry paste!  During that trip, we went to this supermarket (maybe mega-market is a better term) located near to Intercontinental Hotel at Sukhumvit Road, called Big C.  The place was really huge (much like Carrefour at Suntec or Giant at Tampines Retail Park).  And my spoils of shopping war - red, green, yellow and massaman curry pastes!
The first time I made this mussaman curry, I followed the recipe to the last alphabet and punctuation recorded in the book, and cooked it stir-fry style over the stove top ^_^   (and I used the supermarket brand, the Big C brand massaman curry paste).  The first attempt proved to be quite a hit with the kids.  They love the mellow and slightly tangy curry.  The curry looked more brownish than reddish, and it really wasn't that spicy even though chopped red chillies were added at the last stage of cooking.  I bought some roasted peanuts to sprinkle on top of the curry before eating.  The crunchiness was an added fun besides the tang provided by the tamarind paste.  

The second time I made this curry, I used another brand from the same supermarket.  This paste gave a slightly redder color to the curry, and it is a touch more spicy than the Big C brand.  For the second attempt, I decided to convert this stir-fry curry into a slow cooking one to add on to my slow cooking list of recipes.  Instead of chicken breast meat pieces, I used whole chicken thighs including drumsticks and potatoes were cut into large chunks.  I did not bother with roasted peanuts for the second attempt.  Instead I added more tamarind paste to increase the tanginess.  The coconut milk used in the original stir-fry recipe was quite a lot, so I reduced that for my slow cooking version.  The kids still love this curry cooked the slow, slow way and it seems that this particular brand is a little spicier than Big C house brand.  Here's what I did for this curry using a slow cooker ~


Mussaman curry 
(adapted and modified from "Wok and stir-fry: A collection of easy and elegant recipes", Paragon Books Ltd, 2006)
Total cooking time in the cooker: 7 hours (6 hours on LOW, 1 hour on HIGH)


Ingredients

4 chicken thighs including drumsticks, bones in and skinless
2 large yellow onions, cut into chunks
4 medium potatoes, cut into chunks
50g massaman curry paste
250ml water
2 tbsp sugar
6 tbsp tamarind sauce*
100ml thick coconut milk
1 chili (cut into about 2mm slices)
3 tbsp vegetable oil


Method
1. Heat 2 tbsp of oil and saute both onions and potatoes until slightly browned.  Dish out and set aside.
2. Add 1 tbsp of oil and fry the paste over a very low flame (to prevent burning) until the paste release its fragrance.  Add the chicken pieces, one by one and coat them all over with the paste.   
3.  Add the onions and potatoes and try to coat everything with the curry paste as evenly as possible.
4. Add the sugar and water and bring the whole mixture to the boil.
5. Off the heat, transfer the whole content into the slow cooker, placing potatoes and onions at the bottom and the chicken pieces at the top. ^
6. Cover with lid and cook on LOW for 6 hours.  By then the chicken would be soft and tender, the potatoes will still be a little firm.
7. At this point, add the tamarind sauce, the coconut milk and red chili slices.  Turn the temperature to HIGH and cook for 1 hour.  Do not exceed 1 hour on HIGH as the coconut milk will curdle.  Season with a little salt if necessary.


Notes:
* Tamarind sauce is prepared by dissolving (squeezing the pulp) tamarind paste in a small amount of water.  For this recipe, I used 2 tbsp of tamarind paste to about 7 tbsp of water.  Drain away the seeds before spooning into curry.
^ I find that chicken can cook fairly quickly in a slow cooker, hence I placed chicken pieces on top of the vegetables.  The liquid I used did not cover the chicken pieces, but slow cooking on low has the effect of steaming.  So my chicken pieces were pretty soft and tender (also juicy) after 6 hours of slow cooking on LOW.  The potatoes on the other hand still had some firmness to it even though they were basically cooked, or rather, not raw.  Another 1 hour on HIGH managed to soften these potatoes adequately.

Slow cooking pork in salty bean paste sauce, was it babi ponteh?

Mum taught me how to make this dish.  Since then, I had been making this dish, over the stove-top, quite a number of times without realizing that it is actually a popular Peranakan dish called Babi Ponteh.  Since I started my slow cooking project, I have been slowly converting those stewing and braising dishes that I usually cook on the stove-top into slow cooking using my slow cooker.  This is one of those dishes.  

Mum's recipe for this dish is pretty simple.  Different cuts of pork can be used, but we usually go for the belly, or the pork shoulder butt.  Sometimes I'll use ribs, but that really takes a long time to cook, longer than the belly or the shoulder butt.  For the paste, the main ingredients are garlic and salted bean paste, sometimes Mum would add ginger and chilies.  Recently, Mum discovered that the flavor and sweetness of this dish can be further elevated and brought to life with a touch of miso paste and Shaoxing Huadiao wine. Other ingredients that find their way into our version of babi ponteh are beancurd and quail eggs.  The mixture of salted bean paste and garlic really goes well with beancurd and eggs.

On my wedding anniversary, I added this dish to my slow cooking ensemble.  By about 9.30am in the morning, this dish is already in my slow cooker on LOW, simmering away.  The total number of hours I used for this dish is 7.5 hours.  The first 6 hours on LOW and the last 1.5 hours on HIGH.  Is cooking this on the slow cooker better than on the stove-top?  The meat was really soft by the time we had dinner.  I wasn't busy the whole day watching over the pot (I wouldn't be able to do so on that wedding anniversary day anyway), topping it with liquid to prevent it from drying up and scorching my pot.  However, as I was busy with getting this dish out of the way and moving on with baking my surprise for the Hubby, I forgot to add dark soy sauce for color.  The meat came out pretty pale looking, as can be seen from the photos.  I really would prefer it to have a darker, tanner hue.  Furthermore, I think I added too much water in the beginning.  I was worried that liquid wasn't enough and the meat would not cook through.  But the meat cooked fine and shrank in size as it loses it's liquid while cooking.  So I ended up with a little too much sauce than necessary.  One strange thing though, the rind and fats tasted better when this dish is cooked on the stove-top.  Using the slow cooker, the rind and fats was stunningly soft but tasted a tad too porky for me.  I must remember to remove all fats and rind next time.

Mum's pork in salty bean paste sauce

That's the salted bean paste on the spoon.

Ingredients

800g pork shoulder butt

200ml water

6 cloves of garlic

1 small chili (I used chili padi)

1 large beancurd

1.5 tbsp salted bean paste 

1/2 tbsp dark soy sauce

2 tbsp oil

Seasoning

1/2 tbsp miso paste

1 tbsp Shaoxing Huadiao wine

Method

1. Cut the shoulder butt into large chunks.

2. Mash/Pound the garlic, chili padi and salted bean paste into a smooth paste.  I use my mini mortar and pestle to do the job.

3. Cut the beancurd into 6 large square pieces and set aside.

4. In a large fry pan, heat 2 tbsp of oil.  Place the shoulder butt, piece by piece into the pan.  Let the meat brown evenly, then push the meat to one side of the frying pan.

5. Add the paste prepared in step 2 and fry until fragrant over very low heat.  This will prevent the mashed salted bean paste from burning.  

6. Once the fragrance starts to waft into your nose, coat the pork pieces with the paste evenly.

7. Add water and dark soy sauce and bring to boil.  Off the heat and transfer the whole content into slow cooker.

8. Cook at LOW for 6 hours.  Once the 6 hours is up, move the meat to one side and add the beancurd.  Mix the seasonings together, add to the mixture.  Increase the temperature setting to HIGH, continue to cook for a further 1.5 hours (or less if the meat is adequately softened).

Notes:

- if decided to use quail eggs, add the pre-cooked eggs at the same time as the beancurd.

- think it is best to remove all fats and rind if using the slow cooker.  It was really porky.  Maybe browning the rind longer would help to remove the porky smell?  I must try this out again.

- Shallot and ginger are also ingredients used to make the paste to cook this dish.  Consider adding these two ingredients the next time I make this dish. 

  

Our 10th Wedding Anniversary: surprise, chocolate cake, slow cooking dinner and some chairs...

Completed look, writings done with Wilton icing gel

We celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary on 3rd November 2011.  It was a simple affair: a surprise, home-made slow cooking dinner, chocolate cake and some new chairs for the dining area.  Time really flies.  It was just 10 years ago that the both of us were preparing for our wedding.  He had been working for quite a number of years while I was still in graduate school, struggling with a dissertation and worrying about whether I could get a job after graduation.  Back then, the economy was still recovering from the last downturn and the Asian financial crisis.  

10 years on, the economy is still struggling to recover from another downturn, perhaps recession would be a better term.  Life had moved on for me since 10 years ago: graduation, getting employed, starting a family and expanding it with two children.  The marriage had since matured two people who chose to share their lives together.  There were numerous disagreements, arguments, adjustments and compromises.  We learned to appreciate each other's strengths, tolerate and love each other's shortcomings.  I must admit it had not been easy.  It would not be such a significant and meaningful 10th year anniversary had it been smooth-sailing. 

This is the second year I spend our wedding anniversary as a stay-at-home Mum.  But this is the first time the Hubby asked me about my thoughts of our marriage.  Frankly speaking, I haven't given it much thoughts.  But when asked, the only thing I feel immediately is happiness.  Needless to say, there were spousal arguments.  Ultimately, both of us came from different background and upbringing, we have different habits.  Frictions are unavoidable.  My happiness came from all the efforts that both of us made to stay together (through thick and thin episodes of fights), the compromise that both of us made for each other's family and the sacrifices that both of us made for each other in the last 10 years to hold our small family together.  There is something I'd like to put here to remind myself and to share with whoever that comes across this blog and who decides to read it.    

10 yellow sunshine-looking flowers: one for each year spent together...

"I've learned this much about marriage," he said now.  "You get tested.  You find out who you are, who the other person is, and how you accommodate or don't."
Is there some kind of rule to know if a marriage is going to work?
Morrie smiled. "Things are not that simple, Mitch."
I know. 
"Still," he said, "there are a few rules I know to be true about love and marriage: If you don't respect the other person, you're gonna have a lot of trouble.  If you don't know how to compromise, you're gonna have a lot of trouble.  If you can't talk openly about what goes on between you, you're gonna have a lot of trouble.  And if you don't have a common set of values in life, you're gonna have a lot of trouble.  Your values must be alike.  
"And the biggest one of those values, Mitch?"
Yes?
"Your belief in the importance of your marriage."  
He sniffed, then closed his eyes for a moment.
"Personally," he sighed, his eyes still closed, "I think marriage is a very important thing to do, and you're missing a hell of a lot if you don't try it."

-- "Tuesdays with Morrie: an old man, a young man, and life's greatest lesson", by Mitch Albom

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I had planned to make a cake to surprise the Hubby.  But he surprised me instead.  For the past few days before our anniversary, he had been persistently asking me where I would like to go dinner.  Knowing the nature of his job, I suggested a simple dinner at home and save the dining out for the weekend instead.  I didn't want to tolerate the possibility of phone calls disturbing our dinner, not on our anniversary.  On our anniversary day, the Hubby went about his morning ritual as usual, taking a shower and getting ready to send the Tiny Man to school, en route to his office.  I went about my usual routine too, bustling about with the housework after I got home from walking the girl to school.  The Hubby walked out into the living room, ready, but not in his usual office wear.  He was in jeans!  That means he took the day off!  And he didn't tell me!  Okay, he hinted, countless times, with questions about where to go to celebrate our anniversary.  ^_^  Really, this is not the first time he surprised me this way.  But I guess I never did learn to see through his tricks.  

So he was on leave.  That is a problem.  I had planned to make a chocolate cake as a surprise for him.  I had planned to have the cake ready, put it in the fridge and let him find it.  My plans were ruined basically.  And so, I told him about the cake.  He laughed, like how he would always do when I did something silly.  What a way to start our anniversary day ^_^

While the Hubby sent the Tiny Man to school, I rushed to whisk my slow cooking dish up so that I could get on with the cake.  I haven't got the whole day to do all these because the Hubby suggested going to Ikea to get some chairs for the dining table!  Right, I can manage this.  Here's the plan: get the slow cooking dish cooking away in the slow cooker, whisk up the cake and bake it.  Cake should be baked by around noon.  From noon to about 2pm, shop for chairs in Ikea, get lunch and fetch the girl from school.  Get back home, check that cake is cooled enough to garnish with chocolate garnache.  Prepare the rest of dinner and be ready to fetch Tiny Man home by 5pm.  Believe it or not, that was exactly how I spent my 10th wedding anniversary.  But I was glad we didn't go out for dinner.  The Hubby had phone calls to entertain.  He was still entertaining those calls and pounding away on his notebook while I drove out to fetch the Tiny Man.

Those chairs from Ikea.

If it had been the first few years of our marriage, I would be irritable and miserable and felt absolutely "mistreated" by his gross "trickery" and downright insensitivity at not helping out while I was kept so busy the whole day rushing with dinner, cake, chairs and fetching the kids.  But now, I am simply amused by the whole thing.  Silly me for not guessing his game.  Silly me for insisting on ploughing through the range of tasks; I could have just changed my plans.  On the other hand, thanks to the Hubby for his willingness to go along with my plans.  


It was a hectic day...  Happy Anniversary!


Chocolate cake with chocolate garnache
(This is what I did after modifying and improvising on a butter cake recipe from Cooking Crave, I used a 8" round tin for this cake.  Normally I would bake this cake in a 9" square tin.)

Ingredients for chocolate cake
Group 1
250g butter, softened (I prefer salted Golden Churn Creamery butter)
85g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
4 egg yolks
2 tbsp low fat yoghurt (I always put yoghurt into my cakes instead of milk)
170g cake flour
30g unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
150g semi-sweetened dark chocolate, melted


Group 2
4 egg whites
85g castor sugar 


Method
1. Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pot of simmering water.  Set aside to cool.
2. Preheat the oven to 170degC.  Sift the cake flour, cocoa powder and baking powder together and set aside.
3. Grease 8" round tin and line with baking paper.
4. Beat butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.  Add in the egg yolks one at a time, beat in thoroughly until creamy for each addition.  Add the vanilla essence along with one of the egg yolks.
5. Fold in flour mixture, one spoonful at a time.  Each spoonful must be well mixed.
6. After all the flour has been folded in, fold in the melted chocolate.  Then set aside.
7. In a separate, sparkling clean bowl, whisk the egg whites until they are foamy.  Add the sugar gradually and whisk until soft peaks form.
8. Add about a quarter of the whites into chocolate batter (6).  Mix well and fold in the rest of the whites.
9. Gently fold in the low fat yoghurt at this point.
10. Tip the batter into baking tin and bake until a skewer inserted comes out clean.  This should take between 40-50 minutes.
11. Remove cake from the oven, let it stand in the tin for about 5 minutes before tipping it out to cool on a wire rack.


Ingredients for Chocolate garnache
300g semi-sweet dark chocolate chips
250ml whipping cream


Method
1. Heat the whipping cream on very low heat until small bubbles start to form at the sides.
2. Remove from heat and pour the heated cream into the dark chocolate chips.
3. Let it stand so that the chocolate can melt slowly, around 1 minute.
4. Stir slowly until a smooth chocolatey mixture is formed.
5. Use this garnache immediately.  This means that the cake has to be sliced into two layers first and be ready for garnishing.  


Assembling my cake
I cannot make a proper layered cake to save my own life.  I cannot slice the 8" round cake into two equal layers and ensure that these have beautiful smooth surfaces.  But I tried anyhow, trimming away the uneven, slightly domed top and slicing away at the slightly burnt bottom.  Placing one layer of the cake on my wire rack and a plate beneath the rack to catch the dripping garnache, I spread a thin layer of garnache onto the cake.  Then sandwich this thin layer of garnache with the top layer and poured the rest of the garnache over the whole cake.  Watching the garnache spread all over the top and dripping down onto the sides was pretty satisfying.  Satisfying because there is no need to nudge and coax the garnache to cover up any ugly cake surface.  The slow smooth flow of the garnache does the cover-up job on its own, flowing decisively along its chosen path to disguise all portions of imperfections for me.  


Notes:
- The cake was a little denser this time.  I think I put in too much melted chocolate.  Next time try just 75g of melted chocolate.
- The garnache was pretty sweet for my liking.  I think it would be better to use unsweetened dark chocolate chips.

Friday's Special #3: Sukiyaki

Steaming hot pot of sukiyaki!

Once again I was tempted by what I see on "Morning Market" on NHK.  That morning I was watching the section called 産直日本 ("Japan's Local Produce") and it ended with the announcer enjoying a piping hot clay pot of sukiyaki.  It had been a long time since I last had sukiyaki with the Hubby.  As children came along, there really wasn't any opportunity to dine out slowly (and serenely) before either one of the kids decide to end the dinner abruptly with some kiddie fuss.  And so it was decided that we will be having sukiyaki as our Friday's Special, last Friday.  

Not being too sure about the sukiyaki sauce, turning to the net is the immediate thing to do.  The search turned out recipes for the sukiyaki sauce and the song itself.  There were the English version of "Sukiyaki" but I clicked on the original Japanese one, 上を向いて歩こう by 坂本九 (Sakamoto Kyu).  I knew that there was an original Japanese version, but never knew the actual title and the singer.  Listening to the song and watching the video was nostalgic.  Not that I was old enough to enjoy this song as a popular culture back then in 1961 (I wasn't even born yet).  But it's a kind of nostalgic feeling I get whenever I listen to Japanese songs.  I've got this collection of songs from the 1960s, songs like 花嫁、小指の思い出 (the youtube for both titles had been taken off)、逢いたくて逢いたくて and　虹色の湖.  Listening to it also brought back memories of the short but wonderful period when I was living in Japan.  Writing this and searching for these oldies on the net also gave me an opportunity to look at old footages of artistes performing these songs.  Had an enjoyable time switching between the different footages on youtube.  This is something I will never do if I had not started this blog. 

On with the food then.  If it had been about 2 months ago, I guess I would not have been so quick in making the decision to make sukiyaki.  The kids did not seem to like beef.  Even though thinly sliced pork belly would make an acceptable sukiyaki, I suppose it's got to be beef if one's looking for authentic flavors.  It was during one of our dining out session that I introduced beef to the kids.  I gave them beef without telling them what it was.  They liked the meat pretty much that they asked for a second helping.  It was not until the end of that dinner that I revealed that it was beef.  It was a relief when they actually said that beef taste good!

Using my trusty clay pot, the one that I used to make my Claypot rice, I made the sukiyaki on the stove top before transferring the whole clay pot unto a large hotplate to keep it warm.  The hotplate is those type that can be used as a barbecue and steamboat combination.  I supposed the more authentic way to eat sukiyaki would be to cook and eat at the dining table at the same time, much like our Chinese steamboat or the Japanese shabu-shabu. Well, doesn't matter for this instance (except the beef though, which I shall insist). The kids were pretty thrilled to be eating out of a steaming claypot, fishing for beef, vegetables and mushrooms.  I gave the Hubby a raw egg, beaten, so that he could coat the sweet, salty beef pieces into the egg before popping it into his mouth.  But this time, he chose to coat the beef and cook the egg a bit.  For me, I cannot tolerate raw eggs, the texture, the taste and the smell. It is too fishy for me.  So no eggs for me.  The kids on the other hand, took after their father, they were crazy about dipping the ingredients in raw egg.  Both of them made the Hubby really busy with coating the ingredients with egg and returning them to the sukiyaki clay pot to warm them up again.  Finally, this was one dinner I could enjoy in peace.

The Hubby busy warming some egg-coated meat for the kids...

I didn't really have to ask my family how the sukiyaki tasted.  They kept saying it was delicious.  Especially the Hubby, he said it voluntarily, throughout the dinner, about five times, and even on the next day...  ^_^  

Sukiyaki

(put together after consulting various recipes over the internet, modifying ingredients and sauce to suit our preference)

Ingredients

500g thinly sliced beef

600g Chinese cabbage

5 pieces fresh shiitake

250g enoki mushroom

300g radish

1 large beancurd

Sukiyaki sauce

100ml Japanese soy sauce

100ml mirin

3 tbsp Shaoxing Huadiao wine

5 tbsp sugar

200ml water

Method

1. Mix all the ingredients for sukiyaki sauce and set aside for use later.

2. Shred the Chinese cabbage into 5cm thickness, separating the leaves from the tougher stems.

3. Peel the skin off the radish and cut into 1.5cm thick, 5cm long sticks.

4. Divide the beancurd into 6 square pieces.

5. Heat up some oil (about 2 tbsp) in the clay pot.  Add about half of the sliced beef and fry quickly until no longer pink in color.  Push the beef slices to one side of the clay pot, add in the radish sticks, the Chinese cabbage stems, beancurd pieces and shiitake mushroom.  Place these ingredients as neatly as you can possibly manage. 

6. Pour the whole content of the sukiyaki sauce into the clay pot, cover and bring to the boil.  Once boiling, lower the flame to medium low and simmer until the radish sticks and Chinese cabbage stems are softened.

7. Add in the enoki mushrooms and Chinese cabbage leaves.  Ensure that these newly added ingredients are pushed into the sauce to soak up the flavor.  Cover again and let the whole content simmer for about 5 minutes.

8. Finally add in the remaining beef slices, cover to let the added beef pieces cook.  Once the beef slices lose their pinkish tint, it will be ready to serve.  

9. Transfer the whole clay pot unto a hotplate to keep warm, enjoy with a bowl of Japanese gohan.  Sprinkle a little toasted sesame seeds and some nori over the rice, yummy! 

Notes:

- one common ingredient in Sukiyaki, shirataki or ito-konnyaku, is omitted when I made this.  I couldn't get hold of any.  I found ito-konnyaku in Cold Storage, so next time I make sukiyaki again, I'll definitely add this in.

- Another ingredient, shungiku (春菊), is not available in the supermarket in my neighbourhood, so I omitted this too.  But this particular vegetable has a similar taste as our Chinese "dang-orh".  Must remember to use this next time if I see some in the wet market or supermarket.  Chinese New Year is approaching, I think this vegetable will be available soon.