Eggs Florentine, Sort Of

Egg Florentine.

We've been eating poached eggs for weeks now because it's my son's new favourite food. He said poached eggs are way better than fried eggs. Someone's grown up.

Poached eggs used to be harder to make than souffle for me but after many attempts, using many methods, I can poach eggs without feeling anxious. Forget about using cling film (ew) or special egg poachers. Also, don't be anxious. It's just eggs, cheap and easily available. The golden rule is to start with very fresh chilled eggs. Stale eggs have watery whites that will spread out into strands. In hot weather especially, the eggs should be taken out of the fridge just before cooking because a chilled egg is less runny. A good poached egg should have a runny yolk with the white set, compact and rounded around the yolk.

The best way to poach eggs is the vortex method. This just means that you stir the boiling water in a pot until you get a whirlpool. The egg is cracked into a small bowl (easier to control, especially if you are afraid of poaching eggs) and slipped into the calm center of the swirling water. The swirl of the water will keep the egg white from spreading out. A teaspoon of vinegar, said to set the eggs faster, can be added to the boiling water before the egg is slipped in but I've found that it's not necessary although my son says otherwise.

I used to find it such a chore to make Eggs Benedict because of the Hollandaise sauce. Honestly, would you want to make Hollandaise sauce for two Eggs Benedict? What I do now is just thin mayo (Japanese Kewpie mayo is the best substitute for Hollandaise sauce because it has a strong egg yolk flavor) with dairy cream. Sometimes I add whole grain mustard or ordinary mustard. My son prefers to make his paoched eggs and bread with his cream cheese-mayo-chives sauce. It's very yummy and reminded me of Australian brekkies.


The irregularly-shaped egg on top was made in boiling water, no vortex. The two round eggs at the bottom were poached vortex method.


An even faster way with poached eggs is Eggs Florentine which just replaces the bacon or ham of Eggs Benedict with spinach. The spinach is usually blanched but you can serve it raw too. Traditionally poached Eggs Benedict or Florentine are made with toasted English muffins but I made do with what I had on hand, toasted slices of wholemeal bread.


Looks too green for my hub and son.


This looks more appetizing to them, poached eggs on blanched spinach topped with Gruyere cheese and 'Hollandaise' sauce. I find that it's not necessary to grill the assembled Egg Florentine. The blanket of sauce looks rather bumpy because of the lumps of cream cheese underneath.

So, to re-cap:

1. Mix mayo with dairy cream to make a sauce. You can add mustard if like
2. Blanch the spinach, squeeze dry. Or you can leave spinach raw.
3. Crack a fresh chilled egg into a small bowl. Boil a small pot of water. Add a teaspoon of white vinegar (optional). Use a fork or even chopstick to swirl the boiling water fast until it becomes a whirlpool with a calm centre. Slip the egg in and cover with a lid. Remove after 30 seconds, use a fork or spoon to lift the egg off the bottom of the pot if it's stuck, and let egg boil until the white is set but the yolk is still soft and runny. Lift with a slotted spoon onto a piece of kitchen paper to blot.
4. Toast the bread or English muffin.
5. Put the spinach on the toast, top with the egg and cheese (if using) and spoon the 'Hollandaise sauce' over to cover the egg. Top with chopped chives. Serve immediately to happy kids.

The Best Panettone Ever

    Soft, shreddy, rich, flavorful bread speckled with vanilla seeds, plump rum-soaked raisins and brandy-soaked cranberries.

Last year, I made panettone for the first time and thought it was pretty good for a first try. Then my friend Y came with a panettone from Marks and Spencer and it tasted better than mine because the orange peel flavor was stronger. It was still incomparable to the Milanese panettone I bought in Melbourne years ago. I think if you eat something for the first time, eat the best version so that you'll forever measure your future taste of the same thing against the best.

Panettone is a sweet bread that originated from Milan, Italy and it is eaten especially during Christmas. It is a rich bread with candied peel and rum-soaked raisins and has a distinctive look: it's always taller than it is wide. That is a problem for me because I can't get panettone parchment cases here. The other problem is that panettone, like chiffon cakes, is very soft and have to be hung so that it won't sit on its own weight. I didn't know that and the panettone I made for Christmas/New Year deflated as it cooled and sank in the middle. I also didn't know that panettone cooks as it cools. I had served my panettone straight out of the oven and it was a little bit sticky. I told my guests to eat the bread dipped into the vin santo that I had carried from Rome. The bread was so soft that upon dipping in the vin santo, it just soaked all the liquor and turned soggy. Laura has just confirmed that panettone is usually eaten with (not soaked) spumante, a champagne-like Italian wine. I have another question for Laura: do you tear the panettone or cut it? We tore it like monkey bread and it was fun to eat that way.

I once made 6 sponge cakes in one afternoon when I couldn't get the texture right, and threw each failed cake to the dog which turned its head the other way every time a cake landed near him. In that spirit of not giving up, I googled for another panettone recipe two days ago because the panettone I made for Christmas/New Year didn't have the right texture and taste. I wanted a panettone that was shreddy, not crumbly in texture. The latest recipe I found, named 'The Best Panettone Ever', made the best panettone I've ever eaten, better even than the first one I ate.

Unless you love panettone (and I do), don't attempt making it. A lot of time is needed to proof the dough. The dough has to be proofed first for 12 to 15 hours (less in hot weather) and then proofed again for 3 to 5 hours. However, the proofing time is dependent on the room temperature, as I found out last night. I made the dough at 4 pm yesterday, went to a dinner party, came home at midnight and did some reading. Suddenly, just as I was getting into bed, I remembered my dough and rushed to the oven. It was a Magic Porridge Pot scene:


This was 9 hours into proofing.

The other thing about making panettone is the hanging of the cooked bread. I used skewers as per the instructions but the bread pulled through the skewers and was mutilated. If you are not fussy about authentic-looking panettone, use a tube pan. I've read somewhere that large soup cans are good too but that still doesn't solve the hanging part.

I'v made several adjustments to the recipes, not in the amount but in the steps. Lahey's famous for his no-knead bread recipe and this too is a no knead recipe but I left the dough to proof in the mixer bowl and kneaded it after the first proofing because I wanted a shreddy bread. Btw, this recipe is great because everything is mixed at the beginning--you don't have to make a starter dough.

Right after we ate lunch, we pounced on the panettone. It was SO GOOD with coffee. The rain started soon after and I thought life just can't get any better. Really. I know Christmas is over but life is great and we should celebrate each day so make panettone even if it's not Christmas!

                            Out of focus but I want to show how wet the dough was.

    Windowpane stage is when the dough is so stretchy that it can be pulled into a thin, see-through membrane.


The dough was so wet and hard to handle that I used a heavy duty rubber spatula to scoop it and a pair of scissors to cut it.


The next day, after 8 hours of second proofing overnight in the fridge. I made twice the recipe and put one portion into a tube pan and another into a small cake tin.


Place a small spoonful of cold butter on the top before baking. The black specks are vanilla seeds. 


Hanging the poor bread.


The skewers tore through the bread because I used baking paper, not panettone parchment case.



The Best Panettone Ever (Adapted from Jim Lahey's recipe, published in Gourmet, Dec 2008)

1 cup raisins
2/3 cup candied orange peel
1/2 cup dried cranberries (my addition)
2 T light rum + 2 T hot water
1 T brandy (optional)
3 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 t salt
1/2 t instant dry yeast (I used 1 t)
1/4 t grated lemon zest (I used zest from 1 large orange)
seeds from 1/2 vanilla bean (or use vanilla extract)
3 large eggs, room temp
1 T honey (I used maple syrup)
2/3 cup tepid water
10 T or about 170 gm (original recipe was 10 1/2 T) unsalted softened butter/1 T melted/1/2 T chilled

equipment: panettone cases or large parchment case to fit a 7 or 8" round pan, at least 4" tall (no need to grease) or larger tube pan (no need to grease or line)

1. Soak the raisins in the rum and hot water overnight. Soak the cranberries in brandy overnight.
2. Next day (schedule your time), mix the flour, salt, sugar, yeast, lemon or orange zest and vanilla seeds in the bowl of a stand mixer.
3. In another bowl, whisk the eggs, honey/maple syrup and the tepid water.
4. With the mixer at low speed, slowly pour the egg mixture into the flour mixture. Increase speed to medium and mix until well-combined.
5. Add the 10 spoons of softened butter, 1 T at a time, until well-incorporated between additions.
6. Mix the raisins (I didn't have to drain the raisins as instructed because the raisins soaked up all the liquid; wasteful to drain the rum off anyway), the cranberries, the candied peel and the 1 T melted butter and stir that into the dough mixture with a long wooden spoon or heavy-duty spatula until well-mixed.
7. Cover the dough in the same bowl with cling wrap (or transfer to a greased bowl) and leave in a cold oven about 6 hours (in warm weather) or longer (in cold weather; recipe said 12 to 15 hours).
8. Knead the dough in the mixer for about 10 minutes until the dough at 'window pane stage' or as per the original recipe, turn the dough out onto a floured board, pull and fold the dough from outer edges into the middle.
9. Put the dough into a 20 cm/8" tube pan or panettone parchment mould, cover with a wet towel and let it proof 3 to 5 hours until doubled and very soft and puffed. Sprinkle some water on top pf the panettone if it looks dry. About 15 minutes before panettone is to be baked, heat the oven at 180 C.
10. Snip an X on the top of the panettone with scissors (careful not to deflate the dough) and place the knob of cold butter in it. If using  tubepan, place small knobs of butter around the top of the bread.
11. Bake on the bottom rack 1 1/2 hours or until a skewer comes out clean.
12. For panettone baked in tube pan, just turn over like you would a chiffon cake. For round pan, quickly pierce two long skewers parallel through the parchment paper and bread about 4-5 cm/2" from the base and hang the bread upside down in a pot to cool, about 1 hour.

Spanish Brekkie Omelette

Spanish-style omelette of chorizos, potatoes and home-grown cherry tomatoes.

Made a quick brekkie of Spanish-style eggs, like a thinner tortilla, which I ate in Melbourne last year at Chimmy's. Sniffer liked it but then he likes anything charcuteried, which isn't healthy so I limit his intake and it becomes a vicious cycle: the more I limit it, the more he likes it and the more he likes it, the more I limit it.

Time is always a constraint isn't it, so I suggest that you parboil the potatoes the night before. Also, cut them thinner than I did. You can throw in some thinly sliced onions too, always good to eat more veggies. I love Spanish food although strangely I didn't enjoy Mexican food (but I love tacos and enchiladas) when I was last in the States. It's time to travel.





Spanish  Brekkie Omelette (serves 1 or 2)
3 large eggs
1/2 chorizo
1/2 large potato
1/4 tsp salt & a few shakes of black pepper (to taste)
a dash of cream or milk
a sprinkle of grated cheddar cheese
3 to 4 cherry tomatoes
fresh herb to garnish

1. Peel the potatoes or leave unpeeled, cut into small chunks and boil briefly in water until a metal skewer goes through the center but the potato is still firm. Slice the chorizo into small thin chunks. Whisk the eggs with salt, pepper and cream. You can add the cheese now or at the end.

2. Put 1/2 tbsp olive oil into a non-stick or cast iron pan and fry the chorizos and potatoes until golden. Remove.

3.Heat the same pan again (unwashed), pour in the beaten eggs. Let omelette fry a minute until just firm. If your pan can go into the oven, there's no need to turn, just scatter the chorizo, potatoes and tomatoes over and put pan in at about 200 C, preheated, until the top is set. If pan can't go in the oven, continue cooking and scatter the chorizos, potatoes and tomatoes over it and let it cook over medium-low heat until set. You can lift the sides of the omelette to let the uncooked egg run into the pan to cook faster. The omelette cooked over the burner will not look as rustic as that cooked in the oven. You can try turning it over when it's firm enough on the first side and then scatter the toppings over but the toppings may not stick.

4. Sprinkle the cheese over, garnish with fresh herbs and serve immediately with toasted bread.

Green Butter

"Green and butter it"



Basil pesto reinvented: Pesto made with butter on toasted baguette. Sweet basil and cherry tomatoes from my garden.

In Europe last year, my hub embarrassed me frequently by requesting for butter everytime we had bread. For this Chinaman, dinner rolls and bread are to be eaten with butter, not oil and vinegar. When we finally got to London, he was thrilled to be served butter with bread without having to request for it and I was too, because good bread with good butter is one of the most delicious and comforting things to eat, especially when you are watching your diet.

Sweet basil grow so fast in our tropical sun that I often give them away to restaurants. This most distinctly Italian herb needs to be trimmed frequently or it goes to seed and die. I was getting a loaf of baguette last Sunday when it came to me: pesto with butter instead of olive oil and the Royal Selangor Pewter Nick Munro jelly moulds for the Jellyriffic Challenge would be perfect for that. And that's how today's green butter recipe came about. Spread on freshly toasted baguette and eaten with a  chicken stew, we think green butter is divine! If you are making a batch of pesto, try frying up some green eggs too. Yummy.

p.s. I used the pesto butter to fry eggs and bread for breakfast and they tasted wow. Pesto never fails and butter just makes it even better!

Green Butter
3 Tbsp of home-made pesto (recipe here)
100 gm softened but firm salted butter (use the best butter)
a small handful of toasted pinenuts

1. Whisk the butter with an electric hand mixer until light and fluffy.

2. Drop the pinenuts and 3 tablespoons of pesto into the whipped butter and fold to mix well.

3. Scoop into the RSP Nick Munro jelly moulds, packing the butter in firmly. Cover with wrap and chill until firm.


Nick Munro designer jelly moulds from Royal Selangor Pewter. Yes, that's me reflected on the mould.

Flower Buns

Flower twist buns (hua juan) with spring onions, salt and sesame seeds.


Plain flower buns.



The most common--correct--way to shape the flower buns is shown in this video and the buns look like these. Basically you twist the bun like I did but do not pile it high:

I know I've posted on mantou (Chinese buns) before but there's a good reason for re-posting: improvement to the recipe and a new way of shaping the buns, which I came up with based on the shape of the buns I ate  at a local restaurant.

The amount of water was too little in my previous Chinese buns recipe. Maybe it's true that some chefs don't teach you everything or reveal the full recipe. I've been testing and improving the basic bao recipe which I learnt in a bao-making course years ago and I found that if I add a lot more water to the original recipe, the buns will be softer and moister. I also don't bother to get special bao or Hong Kong flour, both of which are very fine and white (read: bleached) flours. I am sticking to plain flour, and I particularly like the good old Rose Flour for making Chinese buns. Rose Flour is not highly bleached so it gives a yellowish tint to the buns but the fragrance of the flour will more than make up for the less-desirable color. Last week, I had a craving for home-made (read: ammonia-free) buns. Home-made buns are good when just out of the steamer but once they cool, they loose some of the softness because ammonia and other additives are not added to the dough. The point of home-made food is to avoid all those commercial chemicals as much as possible but if you insist, then get Hong Kong flour or bao flour which will give a finer and softer texture. The dough must be kneaded very well, preferably with a machine. I've not had good results making dough with my hands in the past but because my cake mixer is still not repaired, I had to use my hands and the buns still turned out soft so I think if you keep to the amount of flour in the recipe, kneading by hands still gives good results.

I've updated my Chinese buns posts--the baos, the mantou and flower buns recipes are one and the same. Now get a packet of plain flour and practice making plain buns to go with one of my best recipes: spicy gong bao chicken, coming up next.



Flower Buns (makes 10 large or 15 to 18 small buns)

A Ingredients:

1 tsp dry yeast

2 Tbsp water

-mix A ingredients together.

(Sshh...if you know your yeast is active, just mix A and B ingredients together at once. I do that all the time)

B Ingredients:

350g Bao or HK flour or Rose (plain) flour

1 tsp double-action baking powder

50g (or less, say 30 g) fine sugar 

200 to 250 ml water* (amended)

1 Tbsp shortening (Crisco) or veg oil

*If you use 250 ml and you are kneading by hand, add 200 ml first and knead in the remainder slowly, 10 to 15 ml each time, so that the dough is not too sticky to handle. Depending on the type of flour, you may not need all the water.

1. Sift the flour and baking powder together (usually I don't bother if the flour is fresh). If using shortening, rub it into the flour evenly.

2. Mix A with all the B ingredients in a mixer bowl and knead at medium speed till very smooth, about 6-8 minutes. The dough should be quite soft. Never mind if it's slighty sticky. Continue kneading until it isn't sticky. If kneading with hands, put dough back into the bowl and cover with a cloth. Rest for 30 min or until doubled, depending on room temperature.

3. Divide dough into 50g portions for larger buns or into golf-ball portions for dainty buns.  Dust your hands and the work surface lightly with some flour. Sometimes I don't because this dough doesn't stick. Flatten each ball, roll into a small oval shape as long as your hand and about 3 to 4 cm wide. Use a metal pastry cutter and cut the dough into thin strips of 1/2 cm, thinner than that if you are making mini buns.

4. Brush the cut strips of dough with veggie oil.

5. Take the ends of the dough, one end in each hand, and twist around your thumb and tips of your forefinger.

6. Stretch the dough by pulling gently as you twist it around the tips of your thumb and forefinger. Tuck the end underneath the bun by pulling the last bit down to meet the other end that's at the bottom. Got it?

7. Here's how it looks from the top: a tight coil, like a chignon. I feel so clever that I figured this out. It must be from playing with my daughter's long hair.
8. Place the buns on a small square of baking paper to proof. Let the buns proof for 30-45 minutes or until doubled. Do not overprove or buns will wrinkle when steamed.
9. Steam at high heat for 4 minutes for small buns, 5 to 6 minutes for larger buns. A bamboo steamer basket gives best results because the steam can escape instead of dripping onto the buns and messing them.
Note: To make flower buns with spring onions (Lily from Jiangxi told me that this is how her dad makes the buns), mix finely-cut spring onions, salt and veg oil or sesame oil and spread over the rolled out dough. I used sesame seeds too for extra flavor.

Cheese Toasties And Hi

Cheese toastie  (no need for fancy names like croque monsieur) is a simple and quick-to-do cheese and bread sandwich, either toasted or fried.

Hi it's Monday and nothing I cooked over the weekend is interesting enough to tell you about. No. Wait. The stewed soy sauce pork came out better than--a bright blue kingfisher just knocked on my window, and it's 11:41 am, a bit late for calls. They usually come around 9 am--I've ever cooked ever it before. Even Hub said so when Wey shook his head in exaggerated praise. Check here for the revised version of my soy sauce pork. Where were we.

Oh yes, I told you I've nothing to blog about today so this is an excuse to say hi to all readers who check in daily. It still thrills me when readers write to tell me what they've cooked from this blog and how their families enjoy their meals. Cooking at home is without doubt cheaper than eating out (leave that for weekends and special occasions) and definitely tons more hygienic, especially in this part of the world. I know it's a lot of effort for those in big cities with what seems like 12 hours instead of 24 but if you have kids especially, get into the kitchen and cook! Even the simplest meals can be more nutritious than the economy dinners in restaurants that are only cheap because the cheapest ingredients are used. Just check out the oil they use.

My kids aren't hot about cheese toasties probably because that's mostly what they had to eat (and instant noodles, but the boys never got tired of that) while growing up but every time I eat a cheese toastie, I am surprised again at how delicious it is and I can't understand how anyone can get tired of it. So yes, this morning's breakfast was cheese toasties, (or for those who prefer, "grilled cheese sandwich") which everyone knows how to make. Come on you do. It's just melty cheese in the middle (I don't butter) toasted-fried in a frying pan with a bit of melted butter until crispy and golden on both sides (flip once only). If my thighs feel extra heavy, I skip the butter and just toast the toasties open (cheese on top of one slice of bread) under the oven grill. Get gooey cheeses like Gruyere, mozzarella, Gouda, provolone, Emmental, cheddar...so many. Choose the cheese for not just their meltability but also for their taste. I like all those cheeses that I mentioned but not Emmental so yes, be selective. What I used this morning was a combination of aged cheddar and mozzarella, grated coarsely because they came in blocks but slices are handier. If you like some variation, slap on a slice of ham or crispy bacon. For lunch, grilled tomatoes or pineapple or peppers make good sides for the toasties.  Or in cold weather, a thick hot soup. Yum.

Tip: be generous with the cheese.


Tilda vintage cheddar, very tasty. You can get it in 800 gm blocks with a wax covering, from Vic Mart in Melbourne. It's aged, but not too much, quite smooth and not too crumbly or sharp.

That's all for this Monday. I've said hi, now's your turn.

Bacon & Eggs Breakfast Pizza

Bacon & eggs breakfast pizza: individual 8" pizza, crust was too thick but filling for a growing teen.

This is featured right now on Saveur's website and it looked brilliant and yummy so I made it straightaway. The recipe comes by way of Smitten Kitchen, the blog that won Saveur's Best Food Photography Award this year. Smitten adapted the recipe from The Big Sur Bakery Cookbook. Gotta get the cookbook, for the recipes and the photos of Big Sur. I love the Big Sur area: the missions, the rugged coast, the 17-Mile Drive, Pebble Beach and the famous golf club, Carmel and the restaurants nestled among the trees overlooking the Pacific. I just don't get the fuss about The Lone Tree.

This breakfast pizza has just eggs, bacon and cheese and no tomato base. I wanted to add some shiitake mushrooms but couldn't find any locally grown ones and we don't like the ones from China because they are too heavily scented. If I was running out of time, I'd use flatbread--pita, chappati--but I wasn't so I made the simple pizza dough (just bread flour, salt, yeast and water, no oil or sugar unlike the usual pizza dough) according to the recipe, left the dough in the fridge overnight and got up at 4:30 am to take the dough out. Actually that was my plan but I couldn't get up so Hub did. It's good to be married to an early riser if you aren't one.

One ball of dough is to make one 12" pizza but I found that makes a crust that's thicker than usual.  If I were to do it again, I'll make it a 13 or 14" with 4 eggs.  I made two 8" very thick-crust pizzas with one ball of dough so if you like your pizza thinner, make three 6" pizzas with that amount of dough.  I made little changes to the recipe for my convenience. I decreased the salt in the dough and also needed to add extra water . As usual, since I know my yeast is good, I dumped all the dough ingredients into the mixer bowl without waiting for the yeast to froth. Since I don't have a pizza stone, I baked the pizza on the lowest rack and cranked my oven to the highest temperature it can go, 250 C. That temperature is still too low for this pizza because the eggs were just nice by 7 minutes but the crust was still underdone. I don't know if  it was the size of the eggs because my eggs weren't large. To counter the underdone crust and overdone eggs, next time I'll bake the pizza with the cheese first and then crack the eggs over halfway through, or just make sure to use large eggs. The smaller pizzas were okay at 6-7 minutes with the fan on. I fried the bacon and got the cheese and garnish ready the night before so the pizzas took about 10 minutes to prepare and another 7 minutes to bake. So it's a little more work than cereal and milk or grilled cheese sandwiches but I think Wey found it a fun and tasty change to his usual breakfast. I hope Nathan, who car pools with Wey, likes it too  (I let them eat in the car). Hub said it was very good too, and it was, but if you, like me, thought this is pizza, you'll be missing the tomato sauce.

p.s. When Wey came home from school, I hounded him about this morning's breakfast and he said the pizza was excellent "with a capital 'E'". How can I not love him to bits??

Bacon & Eggs Breakfast Pizza (makes 2 x 12" pizzas)

1/2 teaspoon dry active yeast

2 cups bread flour, plus more for dusting

3/4 cup lukewarm water, plus more if necessary

1/2 t salt (reduced from 1 t)

6 strips bacon, fried until crispy & cut into small pieces

1/2 cup grated Parmesan

2 cups grated mozzarella

6 large eggs

freshly ground black pepper

2 tablespoons minced flat-leaf parsley

2 tablespoons minced chives

2 scallions, thinly sliced (I replaced with basil leaves)

* In warm weather, I prefer using cold water so that the dough will not be a shaggy mess but in cold weather, do use lukewarm water. Add more water by the spoonful if the dough is too dry, add flour by the spoonful if too wet. The dough after kneading should be soft and smooth.

1. Make the dough the night before. Put the flour, water and salt into your mixer bowl and use a dough hook to knead the dough until it is soft and smooth, about 7-8 minutes. Divide the dough into two balls and with your palm over the dough ball on a lightly floured work surface, roll each into a tight ball. Dust a cake pan with flour and put the dough balls inside, then put the pan into a plastic bag, seal it and leave it in the fridge overnight. This'll give time for the dough to relax so that it's easier to stretch.

2. Take the dough out to warm up about 1 1/2 to 2 hours before using it. Switch on oven to the highest temp, about 230 to 250 C in most home ovens.

3. Dust your work surface and roll each piece of dough ball into a 12-13" circle.  Place the pizza  base on a well-floured pizza pan or oven tray, patting out the pizza to stretch it but leaving the edges thicker than the center. Use half the ingredients for each of the pizza: first the cheeses, then the bacon and finally, crack the eggs over. Season with freshly ground pepper and salt (I forgot so I did this after the pizza was done). Alternatively, top the pizza with the cheese and bake 4 minutes, then remove the tray (careful!) from the oven and crack the eggs over and bake another 4 minutes so the yolks are still runny. Or use large eggs as recommended.

4. Bake the pizzas (I found they cooked better with the fan on) until the crust is browned and the egg still easy/runny (less than 8 minutes esp. if you have the fan on) and remove from oven. Sprinkle the parsley, chives and shallot over.

Please refer to Smitten Kitchen's recipe if you are baking on a pizza stone.

Mantou

update: check here for flower buns.

It's very very hot (35 C!) and humid recently, perfect weather for making bread and anything that needs to be leavened, and so I made mantou.  In my post on Chinese buns (baos), a couple of readers commented that the dough was dry and the baos turned hard after they cooled. That bothered me because only true and tried recipes make it to this blog.

I too found that the dough according to my recipe was very dry and I had to add extra water to get a smooth dough. I checked the original recipe and found that the amount of water given was in grams, not ml and I had scribbled the equivalent of 120 ml next to the 100 gm of water, as informed by the chef I learnt the recipe from. Could that be wrong? It was. 100 g of water is about 140 ml when I measured it on my scale and in a jug (as pointed out correctly by a reader, 1 g  (pure) water at a warm room temp equals 1 ml--which I've always used in conversion for my cooking but not for this recipe since the chef instructed that the ml measurement is higher--but I used a non-digital kitchen scale so this amount is distorted. Whatever, the amount of water should be about 180 to 200 ml). On top of that, the original recipe used 100 gm of steamed sweet potatoes which had water and we were told that we can substitute the steamed potato with the same amount of flour. But then how did I make the baos in the photo? I can't remember, but I must've measured the water by weight and added extra water and forgot to note it on my posted recipe. In any case, I have amended the recipe for this post according to my latest attempt. Sorry for the mistake!

Mantou are steamed leavened buns that can be filled or not filled. According to this wiki piece, the origin of mantou was attributed to the much respected statesman Zhuge Liang (who lived 1800 years ago), a name I often hear my Hub speak of (and which I often mistaken for someone he knows, or some present-day politician in China) when he tells me about Chinese history (the only famous Chinese I read about in school was Confucious and Shi Huang Di):

This story originates from the Three Kingdoms Period, when the strategist Zhuge Liang led the Shu Army in an invasion of the southern lands (roughly modern-day Yunnan and northern Burma). After subduing the barbarian king Meng Huo, Zhuge Liang led the army back to Shu, but met a swift-flowing river which defied all attempts to cross it. A barbarian lord informed him that, in olden days, the barbarians would sacrifice 50 men and throw their heads into the river to appease the river spirit and allow them to cross; Zhuge Liang, however, did not want to cause any more bloodshed, and instead killed the cows and horses the army brought along and filled their meat into buns shaped roughly like human heads - round with a flat base - to be made and then thrown into the river. After a successful crossing he named the buns "barbarian's head" (mántóu, 蠻頭), which evolved into the present day mántóu (饅頭).

Most mantou are Northern Chinese in origin since wheat is the staple food of the northern Chinese.  The famous cha shau bao you eat at dim sum restaurants however is Southern Chinese. Flower rolls (hua juan) are mantou (buns) without fillings, to be eaten with meat stews and saucy dishes. The dough is cut into thin strips, and rolled and twisted into spiral mounds. Ying xi juan or silver thread buns (Chinese food and dishes often have very fanciful descriptive names) are also unfilled mantou and they are called such because inside the long bun are thin dough strips which with a bit of imagination and poetic flair look like silver threads.

While my mantou turned out very light and soft, a lot of improvement is needed to shape the flower rolls and silver thread rolls. I didn't cut the dough strips through or brush them with oil and when the flower rolls proofed, the dough strips fused together.  I did lightly oil the dough strips for the silver thread buns but on the upper surface only. The strips have to be well-oiled all around for them not to fuse together during proofing and steaming. I'm also not too sure how the rolls should be shaped because it's been a long time since I ate authentic flower rolls. I'll get some idea of  the real thing this October when we visit Shanghai for the Expo.

These mantou stayed soft even after they cooled. Mantou are usually left in the steamer and eaten hot.  I used bao flour and the mantou turned out soft, light, fine-textured and pure white, like commercial baos. You can use plain flour too and although the mantou aren't as fine-textured or white, they taste just as good.  Snow-white mantao are beautiful but too bleached for me. Like bread making, mantou are fun to make, especially if they turn out well. This is a fail-proof recipe now. I challenge you to try it.

An attempt at making silver thread rolls and flower rolls
Basic Mantou/Bao Dough

A Ingredients:

1 tsp dry yeast

2 Tbsp water

-mix A ingredients together.

(Sshh...if you know your yeast is active, just mix A and B ingredients together at once. I do that all the time)

B Ingredients:

350g Bao or HK flour or Rose (plain) flour

1 tsp double-action baking powder

50g (or less, say 30 g) fine sugar 

200 to 250 ml water* (amended)

1 Tbsp shortening (Crisco) or veg oil

*If you use 250 ml and you are kneading by hand, add 200 ml first and knead in the remainder slowly, 10 to 15 ml each time, so that the dough is not too sticky to handle. Depending on the type of flour you use, you may not need all the water.

1. Sift the flour and baking powder together (usually I don't bother if the flour is fresh). If using shortening, rub it into the flour evenly.

2. Mix A with all the B ingredients in a mixer bowl and knead at medium speed till very smooth, about 6-8 minutes. The dough should be quite soft. Never mind if it's slighty sticky. Continue kneading until it isn't sticky. If kneading with hands, put dough back into the bowl and cover with a cloth. Rest for 30 min or until doubled, depending on room temperature.

3. For flower rolls: Divide dough into 50g portions & roll into smooth balls without using flour.  Only if the dough is way too sticky, dust your hands and the work surface lightly with some flour. Flatten each ball, roll into a small rectangle as long as your hand (fingers n palm) and about 4 cm wide. Use a metal pastry cutter and cut the dough into strips. Brush veg oil all over the surface of the strips. Take the ends of the dough, one in each hand, and twist into a pretty roll. I've seen some photos of flower rolls that are twisted in and out, very pretty. Place the roll on a small square of baking paper, about 6 cm square. Let the rolls proof for 30-45 minutes or until doubled. Do not overproof or rolls will wrinkle when steamed.

Steam at high heat for 5 minutes in a bamboo steamer. Serve hot.

For silver thread rolls:  Roll a piece of dough about the length of your palm and about 1/3 cm thick. Cut into strips about the size of udon noodles with metal cutter and brush veg oil generously on both sides. Roll out a large thin piece of dough 'skin'. Lift half the strips, holding each end in each of your hands and stretch slightly, then place onto the center of the 'skin'.  Lift the remaining strips, stretch and lay on top of the  first strips and fold the sides of the skin over, pinching the ends to seal well. Lay the long roll on baking paper and let proof for 30-45 minutes or until doubled. Steam for 8 minutes. When cool, slice crosswise into 4 cm-thick sections. Serve hot with meat dishes.

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For filled baos: Divide the dough into 50g (small) or 70 g (large) pieces. Roll each into a ball, then flatten into a circle, fill with your choice of filling (savory or sweet), seal the baos (pleated for savory n smooth top for plain), let it rise until doubled n steam about 6-8 minutes. If the filling is uncooked meat, steam for 12-15 minutes.

Note: Mantou can be re-heated by steaming. A bamboo steamer is best for steaming mantou because the gaps in the steamer let the steam out so that the steam won't condense on the mantou and damage their appearance.

Easy Butter Chicken

Everytime we eat Northern Indian food, butter chicken (murkh mahani) is a must. It's like how some people order sweet and sour pork everytime they eat Chinese.

I'm not good with Indian spices and until now I can't tell between fennel and cumin, especially when they are ground. In this recipe, which is from a 2006 issue of Delicious, the garam marsala is made from scratch but that's like making my own fireworks, so I used the bottled stuff. The recipe doesn't call for plain yogurt, which is fine by me because it's an item that's hard to find here and even if I do, the remainder always goes to waste. I call this easy butter chicken because you don't need to marinade the chicken overnight. With so many spices, I don't think anyone would taste the difference if the meat is marinaded or not. Surprisingly, there's very little butter in butter chicken so it's not as sinful as it sounds. Vary the amount of cream and tomato paste to your liking; I used more tomato paste and less cream but my kids think it should be the other way around. I made slight changes to the recipe, like frying the chicken separately in a non-stick pan first.

A small dish of butter chicken in restaurants will cost about RM25/US$7, enough for one person only. The last time we ate butter chicken out, there was plenty of sauce but we had to fish for the almond-sized chicken so I prefer to cook my own butter chicken.

The best bread to eat butter chicken with is naan but at home I prefer to make chapatties because they are faster and easier to make. Chapatties are nearly oil-free, full of nutty wholemeal and very easy to make. Another easy flatbread (meaning they are flat, because no leavening agent is used) is puri but puris need to be deep-fried which makes them tasty but greasy. When I was about 8, my dad determined that our Eurasian neighbor could help me with my English. Aunty Epps whacked my fingers with a ruler whenever I made spelling mistakes and I was terrified of her but I was in awe of her too because she was a great cook. If she was in the right mood, she'd let me stay back after lessons and watch her cook curries, stews, cakes--food my mom didn't cook. Other housewives looked like housewives but Mrs Epps was different. She was always trendily dressed and her home always tidy with music playing all the time. She always greeted her husband at the door with a kiss, which to us then was like watching a peep show. Valerie, her grown-up daughter, listened to The Beatles and wore mini skirts and danced a-go-go while Uncle Epps drove a Volkswagon. I thought they were so cool and I wanted to be like Mrs Epps. It was Aunty Epps who showed me that cooking is fun and it was her who triggered my interest in cooking. Puris remind me of Aunty Epps, who I never met again after they moved to Perth.



Easy Butter Chicken
1.5 kg chicken, jointed or deboned as preferred
1 brown onion, chopped finely
4 garlic cloves, chopped finely
2.5 cm piece of ginger, grated and 5 cm piece ginger, in thin julienne strips
1 T lemon juice
1 t chili powder
2 t paprika
40 g butter + 1 extra spoon if like
3 T tomato paste
1 T brown sugar
150 ml thickened cream
1 cup water
3 t garam marsala
3 T veg oil
1/4 cup coriander (cilantro) for garnishing

1. Put the onion, garlic, grated ginger, lemon juice, chili powder, paprika and 2 teaspoon of marsala into a food processor, adding 1 to 2 tablespoon of water to make a paste.

2. Heat 2 T oil in a large non-stick frypan and fry the chicken, in batches if necessary, until browned on all sides. Remove and set aside.

3. Add the butter + 1 T oil to a pot large enough for the ingredients. Add the spice paste and fry 5 to 10 minutes until oil starts to separate from the paste. Add the water, tomato paste, sugar and salt (you can mix all these together in a bowl first) and let sauce simmer 10 minutes.

4. Stir in the ginger strips, cream and chicken and simmer, covered, for 30 minutes or until chicken is tender.

5. Before taking the curry off the fire, add 1 t garam marsala and an extra spoon of butter if like. Top with the coriander leaves and serve with Indian bread like naan, chapati or puri.



The Garam Marsala
1 1/2 t cumin seeds
1 1/2 fennel seeds
3/4 cardamon seeds (from inside the pods)
1/4 t kolonji/nigella seeds (which I couldn't find here)
1/4 t black peppercorns
1 small stick of cinnamon
4 cloves
1/4 t nutmeg

Heat a heavy pan and fry the spices at medium heat (except the nutmeg) for a few seconds until aromatic. Tip into a spice grinder and grind into a fine powder. Add the nutmeg. The garam marsala will keep in a glass jar in the fridge for several months.



Puris
300g fine wholemeal/atta flour or plain flour
1/2 t or less salt
1/2 t sugar
1/2 T butter, softened
300 ml (depending on the flour) warm water

1. Mix everything in a bowl and knead to form a firm smooth dough.

2. Divide the dough into half then each half into half and so on until you get 14 pieces of dough. Roll into balls and flatten each ball to make a small disc. Dust the work surface with flour and use a rolling pin to roll each disc into a thin 3 mm thick 6 "/15 cm circle.

3. Heat oil to deep fry (the more oil, the puffier and smoother-surfaced the puris. I didn't use enough oil) and fry each puri one by one, gently pressing it down so that it is immersed in the oil. As soon as the puri is puffed, turn over and fry for a couple of seconds and remove onto kitchen paper. Serve immediately.

Chapatties
300 g fine wholemeal/atta flour
less than 1/2 t salt
1/2 T butter, softened
300 ml or more warm water
extra flour for dusting

1. Mix everything in a large bowl until the dough is soft and smooth. Cover with a damp cloth and let stand 1/2 hour or preferably overnight to give a softer bread.

2. Divide the dough into half then each half into half and so on until you get 12 -14 pieces of dough. Roll into balls and flatten each ball to make a small disc. Dust the work surface with flour and use a rolling pin to roll each disc into a thin 3 mm thick 6 "/15 cm circle.

3. Heat a frying pan or griddle (no need to grease) and cook the chapatties over medium heat, 30 seconds on each side. Keep fried chapatties covered in a tea towel until serving time. Chapatties can be frozen and reheated when needed.

Re-post: Chicken In A Basket

Cute name, isn't it. After watching the movie 'V for Vendetta' last year, I did a little research. The first time I cooked it, Wey ate four pieces of chicken in a basket! When he got tired of it, I added the bacon, and he went all uncontrollable again. Try it on your kids, or even their father. Chicken in A Basket 1 pc thick-cut white bread 1 egg butter salt n pepper 1. Butter the bread quite generously (for health reasons, I do one side only) and, using kitchen scissors, cut a hole (smaller than size of a tennis ball) in the bread. 2. Heat up a pan (non-stick is easiest, but not for me; all that Teflon) and put the bread butter-side down. Now add a little bit of oil/butter in the hole if you're not using non-stick ware. Crack the egg in and cook at medium heat. 3. Season lightly with salt and pepper. Turn over and cook the other side. For pig n chicken in a basket, lay a rasher of streaky bacon (whatever pattern) on the pan and turn over when it's half-done( do use a paper towel to soak up some of the oil if health-conscious). Now lay the cut bread over it, making sure the hole is over the bacon. Crack the egg in. I don't salt this, just pepper it. Serve it for breakfast with a glass of freshly-squeezed orange juice!

Garlic Butter Buns

Who can resist a hot, fluffy garlic butter bun? I can't. I eat at least two of these buns each time they come out from the oven and I would have a third if my belly doesn't hurt so much hanging over my jeans.

The dough recipe is the same sweet dough I told you about a few posts ago. You can use this recipe to make all the different buns and rolls you can think of. Garlic butter spread is cheap and easy to make, and you can go further by adding grated cheese or a hot dog in the buns. Someone told me these buns are better than those from the bakeries, and I'm like "Of course they are!" Don't just read about it, try this out today. Don't wait. I may out of exasperation withdraw my recipes if they aren't put to use.



The Dough
500 g bread flour
1 1/2 t dry active yeast
50 g castor sugar*
1 t salt
1 medium-sized egg
50 g cold butter
260 ml cold water (lukewarm water if room temp is low)

*reduce or increase according to the type of bread you are making

1. Put all the ingredients into your mixer bowl and knead at medium speed for 12-15 minutes., or even longer (20 min) but do not let the machine over-heat. The dough will be very wet and sticky at first and gradually becomes less wet but still sticky. Take out the dough hook, cover the bowl with a cloth and leave in unheated oven for 1 hour until all puffed (they always say until dough doubles but really the dough triples).

2. Punch dough down, lift out of the bowl and put it on a lightly floured counter. Cut into 50 g pieces. Roll each piece into a smooth ball, then into a cone, then flatten the cone-shaped dough into a longish triangle and roll up from the wider end:



3. Place each rolled piece of dough onto a greased and/or well-floured tray and leave in unheated oven to proof for 1 hour or until more than doubled.

4. Brush the top of the buns with beaten egg yolk, snip down the middle with a sharp pair of scissors (careful or the dough will deflate), spoon some garlic butter onto the slitted area and place in a preheated oven at 200 C, for 8-10 minutes.


Garlic Butter
100 g salted butter
1 bulb garlic, chopped very finely
1 T fresh or 1 t dried parsley
-whisk it all together with a small hand whisk.
-add a pinch of salt if like (I don't; we are on low salt diet)

p.s. I made the buns at night and saved some of the proofed dough in the fridge overnight to make these 4 buns the next day so that I could take better photos in daylight. You can keep the proofed dough (after first proofing) for more than 12 hours in the fridge.