Tuesday, 5 September 2023

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Shoyu Ramen


Toppings:

1. 1 packet of 125g blanched bean sprouts
2. 1 can corn kernels drained
3. 1 sheets nori seaweeds cut into 4 quarters.
4. 2 stalk spring onions minced
5. 4 medium boiled eggs (boil eggs in a pot of water for 6 minutes)
6. 1 packet enoki mushrooms cooked
7. 4 leaves of Bok Choi Chinese vegetables blanched (optional)
8. A handful of broccoli blanched
9. 1/2 tsp garlic oil (optional)

Directions:

1. Bring to boil a pot of 2 litres of water.

2. Blanch spinach, dish and put aside.

3. Add broccoli, once cooked, dish and put aside.

4. Add beansprouts, once cooked, dish and put aside.

5. Add Bok Choi Chinese vegetables, once cooked, dish and put aside.

Boiled Eggs

Ingredients:

1. 250ml water
2. 4 eggs
3. 1 TBS soy sauce

Directions:

1. Bring to boil a pot of 250ml water, add 4 eggs and cook for 6 minutes.

2. Drain and peel shell of eggs.

3. Place eggs back to the pot.

4. Add 1 tablespoon of soy sauce.

5. Roll the eggs to get the dark color on it.

6. Set aside.

Ramen Noodles:

Makes 4 servings of 75g ramen noodles each or make your own as follows:

Ingredients:

1. 450g plain flour
2. 1 tsp kansui alkaline water
3. 180ml liquid = 2 eggs + water (170g water if not using eggs)
4. 2 tsp salt
5. 2 litres of water

Directions:

Making noodles:
1. Place 450g flour into the Philips Pasta machine.

2. Slowly pour 180ml liquid = 2 eggs + water + 1 tsp alkaline water.

3. Run it through the machine and the noodles are made.

Cooking noodles:
3. Bring to boil a pot of 2 litres of water.

4. Add noodles and 2 teaspoons of salt.

5. Boil until noodles are cooked and float.

6. Drain and flush with cold water to cool the noodles down immediately so that the noodles will be chewy.

7. Set noodles aside.

Pork Stock:

Ingredients:

1. 1 kg of pork ribs
2. 2 litres of water
3. Salt to taste

Directions:

1. Bring to boil a pot of 2 litres of water.

2. Add pork ribs and salt.

3. Turn down fire (no. 2 out of 9 on my stove) and simmer for 1 hour or more and it's done.

Shoyu Soup (per serving):

Ingredients:

1. 2 cups of pork stock
2. 1.5 TBS soy sauce
3. A dash of salt

Directions:

1. In a pot, add pork stock or water.

2. Add 1.5 TBS soy sauce and a dash of salt.

3. Bring to a light boil and it's done.

Katsu Pork Cutlet:

Ingredients:

1. 4 pieces of pork cutlet
2. 1 TBS soy sauce
3. 1 tsp sesame oil
4. A dash of salt and pepper
5. 1 tsp corn starch
6. 1 TBS corn starch
7. 1 TBS brown rice flour
8. 50ml cooking oil for frying

Directions:

1. In a bowl, add pork cutlet, soy sauce, sesame oil, salt, pepper and 1 teaspoon corn starch and mix well.

2. In a separate plate, add 1 tablespoon corn starch and 1 tablespoon brown rice flour.

3. Lightly coat the pork cutlets on both side.

4. Heat up a pan with the cooking oil for frying the pork cutlets.

5. Place the pork cutlets into the pan and bring down heat to no. 5.5 on my stove.

6. Fry until golden on both sides. 

7. Cover and cook the pork cutlets (test a slice to see if it is fully cooked).

8. Place on kitchen towel to remove excess oil and set aside.

Building the noodle bowl:

1. Add a portion of noodles into a bowl.

2. Ladle the shoyu soup into a soup bowl.

3. Place blanched broccoli, Bok Choi, beansprouts, boiled eggs, katsu pork cutlet, sweet corns, chopped spring onions and nori seaweed.

4. Add a teaspoon of garlic oil.

5. Cut the katsu pork cutlet into slices and serve :-)

Additional Information:

Among the different ramens - Miso ramen, Tonkontsu ramen, etc., Our Little FECS likes the Shoyu ramen best. It is also one of the easiest ramens to make. Shoyu basically mean soy sauce based soup. I tried this today and Little FECS ate it after coming back from school. He gave a thumbs up,  and said that it is the tastiest one so far, after trying many different ones :-) Daddy FECS too likes this soup base best.

Make Pork Stock:

Bring to boil 2 litres of water, add pork ribs and salt and simmer under low fire (no. 2.5 on my stove) for and hour until cooked.

Making boiled eggs:

Boil eggs for 6 minutes, drain and peel off egg shell.

Add 1 tablespoon soy sauce.

Roll eggs in the soy sauce to get a bit of color on the eggs and set aside.

Making Katsu pork cutlets:

Mix 1 tablespoon corn starch and 1 tablespoon brown rice flour, and coat the pork cutlet on both sides.

Heat oil, fry pork cutlets until golden on medium high heat (no. 7 on my stove).

Turn over and fry until golden. Then cover with lid and fry for 5 minutes under medium low heat (no. 4 on my stove)

5 Sep 2023 (14Y6M): J having homemade ramen after school :-)

Thursday, 31 August 2023

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Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

 

Adapted from Tasty

Makes 15 large cookies or 50 medium cookies

The winning proportion between flour, butter and sugar is 1:1:1.3 respectively.

Ingredients:

200g flour or white whole wheat flour
200g butter
200g of dark, milk and white chocolate chips
200g chopped walnuts or chopped almonds or hazelnuts
260g sugar consisting of 200g dark brown sugar and 60g white sugar 
2 eggs
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp Nescafe decaf coffee powder
1 tsp vanilla powder
1 tsp cocoa powder (optional)

Combined wet ingredients with dry ingredients. Don't overbeat the eggs.

Oven temperature: 175 degree Celsius

Bake Time: 12 minutes until golden brown on the edges but the middle still look doughy.

Directions:

1. In a separate bowl, mix flour, vanilla powder, Nescafe, cocoa powder and baking soda and set aside.

2. In a large bowl, beat butter, brown sugar and white sugar until combined and creamy. You can do by hand or machine.

3. Add the two egg and beat until incorporated.

4. Mix in the dry ingredients until combined.

5. Add chocolate chips and chopped walnuts and mix well.

6. Refrigerate the dough for an hour or overnight (I don't have self-control, so I never quite succeeded in following this step. This step is if you want perfection, but the cookies still taste great skipping this step.)

7. Use a trigger-release ice-cream scoop (equivalent to 3 tablespoon size to form 9 cookies. 

8. Bake at 175 degree Celsius for 12 - 15 minutes for large cookies or 7 minutes for medium cookies or until golden on the edges. Take them out when they are just barely starting to turn brown and still look doughy.

9. Let them sit on the baking tray for 2 minutes before removing to cooling rack.

Additional Information:

Cookie is made up mainly of flour, fat, sugar, but it is the wining combination of these ingredients that enables a cookie achieve the heavenly melt-in-your-mouth chewiness. The sugar content must be higher than the flour in order for the cookie to be chewy. I used 30% more sugar compared to flour. And to use the same amount of flour with the same amount of oil.

I have failed many times while trying to bake the most chewy chocolate chip cookies, as they usually turned out cakey, instead of chewy *. So now I decided to follow this recipe from Tasty.co faithfully (apart from omitting salt since the butter I used is salted and adding cornstarch). I have left out the cornstarch, nut the cookies made from this recipe turned out so good - absolutely delicious, chewy on the inside and crispy on the outside. The downside is that this recipe is SINFULLY UNHEALTHY thanks to the amount of sugar used relative to other recipes that I have come across. I guess this must be the reason that gives it the chewy texture. Everyone at home loves them. These cookies are very addictive, but everyone is aware that this is only going to be for an occasional rare treat.

Here is the link to the original recipe:

It is not necessary to go through the trouble to melt the butter over the stove top, that is too much work. I didn't heat or melt the butter. I simply used soft butter and I still achieved the heavenly "melt-in-your-mouth" chewiness.

I discovered after a few rounds of experiment that the "melt-in-your mouth" chewiness is mostly credited to the sugar content in the cookies. The greater the sugar content, the more chewy the cookie is. In general, the ratio of sugar to flour has to be higher, around 3:2, in order to achieve the "melt-in-your-mouth" chewiness that we all desire in a chocolate chip cookie.

I tried using the more nutritious white whole wheat flour instead of white flour. It turned out fantastically great and retained the same kind of "melt-in-your-mouth" chewiness. I also tried substituting butter with olive oil. The cookies still tasted good, soft but were no longer in the league of "melt-in-your-mouth" chewiness.

* Below are the three recipes that I have tried and the cookies turned out cakey :-(




References:



https://www.momontimeout.com/giant-chewy-chocolate-chip-cookies_28/

https://www.bobsredmill.com/blog/baking-101/how-to-make-chewy-cookies/

https://bakerbettie.com/the-science-of-the-chocolate-chip-cookie/

https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/30254/difference-in-cookie-texture-if-we-use-melted-vs-softened-butter

https://www.purewow.com/food/how-to-keep-cookies-soft

https://www.seriouseats.com/cookie-science-how-do-eggs-affect-my-cookies

https://www.mytastednk.com/o/chokolade-sm%C3%A5kager-som-lidl-49285057.html

https://www.lidl.dk/p/bake-off-kager-og-soedt/triple-chocolate-chip-cookie/p34119

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U80aSRBAAY0

You can use plain flour, but I like to use this white whole wheat flour as it is more nutritious, provide more fiber, and still achieve the same "melt-in-your-mouth" chewiness that plain flour does :-) You can buy it from Føtex Supermarket for 23.95 DKK a pack.

In a mixing bowl, add 110g of brown sugar

Add 50g of granulated sugar.

Add 115g of softened butter

Mix until combined by hand or mixer.

Add an egg and an egg yolk.

Mix until combined by hand or hand-mixer. Don't over-beat.

In a separate bowl, add 110g of white whole wheat flour.

Add 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda.

Don't forget 1 teaspoon of vanilla powder and 1/2 teaspoon of Nescafe decaf coffee powder too (I forgot to take a picture).

Mix in the flour. I like to sift it into the cookie dough, but it's probably not so necessary.

Combine the wet ingredients and the dry flour ingredients.

Now the dough is done.

Add chocolate chips anywhere between 50-130g as desired. I usually add 110g of a mixture of white, milk and dark chocolate chips.

Add 50-130g of desired nuts. They are so nutritious and make the cookies more nutritious. It also provide a nice crunch. We like chopped walnuts. We usually add 110-130g of walnuts.

Mix well.

Refrigerate the cookie dough for an hour. This prevent over-spreading when the cookie is being baked in the oven.

Scoop into 9 large balls, but only place 6 dough balls on each tray, as they would spread as they are being baked. I like to use trigger-release ice-cream scoop, but using a spoon will do too.

You can decorate it with a few chocolate chips on each dough ball if you wish (optional)

Bake at 175 degree Celsius for 12 - 15 minutes for large cookies or 7 minutes for medium cookies or until golden on the edges, but soft and moist in the middle. Take them out when they are just barely starting to turn brown and still look doughy.

Let them sit on the baking tray for 2 minutes before removing to cooling rack.

Now it's done :-)



Friday, 25 August 2023

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Five Minutes Copycat Homemade Japanese Mayonnaise (Kewpie Mayo)

  

Japanese Kewpie Mayonnaise :-)
Ingredients:

1. 2 egg yolks (I use pasteurized egg yolks)
2. 1 tsp Dijon mustard (heapful) (or 1 level tablespoon)
3. 1 tsp lemon juice
4. 1 short turn of the salt shaker (0.5g)
5. 150ml sunflower oil or any other neutral cooking oil
6. 1/2 tsp of soy sauce
7. 1 tsp rice vinegar (optional)
8. 1/4 tsp honey (optional)
9. 1 short turn of the salt shaker (0.5g)

Directions:

1. In a glass jar, add egg yolks, Dijon mustard, lemon juice, salt and oil into a stick blender.

2. Place blender to the bottom of the glass jar and start blending.

3. As soon as you notice the bottom of the jar quickly turning thick and white, move the blender up slowly about an inch, and continue blending.

4. Keep moving up slowly until the whole mixture is emulsified. It take about 5 minutes.

Tips:

After it is done, Stir in 1-2 more teaspoons of lemon juice if you prefer and add some other seasoning such as chili sauce etc. as desired :-)

Video Demonstration:



Additional Information:

Mayonnaise is made of simple few ingredients. My family love this homemade mayonnaise. Unlike store-bought mayonnaise, which contains lots of preservatives and chemical, you may not be buying a real thing. When you make it yourself, you can use fresh ingredients and you are in control of what goes into your mayonnaise. 

After trying out various methods (by hand, using food processor, etc.), I find that using a stick blender gives the best consistency and the fastest results. It is also the ideal method to simply whip up a small portion easily. It is mess-free and it is blended into thick and smooth mayonnaise within 2-5 minutes. Using this method also gives you fluffy and a bigger volume of mayonnaise with the least amount of oil. Some recipe calls for 250ml to 1litre of oil, but this recipe uses only 150ml of oil. Mayonnaise if made from home can be very nutritious as it is rich in proteins and vitamin Bs from the egg yolks - just what a growing teenager needs!!! But it contains far less oil and unhealthy fats compared to the store-bought ones.

And it is a lot cheaper than the store-bought ones too. It's a win-win-win :-)

Mayonnaise is a oil in water emulsion (O/W emulsion). Although it is simple, for it to be successful, the ratio of oil to water must be between 75 - 83%, otherwise it breaks. The best mayonnaise is made of egg yolk instead of whole egg. The best consistency between water and oil proportion is 30% water and 70% oil.

Introducing the oil too fast and over-blending may also break the emulsion. Thus, it is important to start blending when the stick-blender is all the way in the bottom, as when it starts to emulsify, the blending will pull in more oil on its own. Dijon mustard gives it a bit of kick and also helps in emulsifying. 

The secret ingredient in Japanese Mayonnaise is the soy sauce. It gives the Japanese mayonnaise a umami taste.

Warning: Don't add too much soy sauce, it will back fire. Just 1/2 tsp is perfect and gives it the unami tangy flavor of the Japanese mayo.

References:


I use pasteurized egg yolks shown above, which are sold in all supermarkets in Denmark such as Netto and Føtex. 1 container contains 2 egg yolks.

Here are the 5 ingredients you need to make mayonnaise: egg yolks, Dijon mustard, lemon, salt and sunflower oil or other neutral cooking oil.

Soy sauce

You need a glass jar with lid and a stick blender. Remember to save your jam jars instead to make and store mayonnaise :-)

When you blend, place the stick blender into the bottom of the jar and start the blending. From blending to storage, you will be using only one container. This saves time and washing up effort :-)


Add 2 egg yolks (I use pasteurized egg yolks)

Add 1 heap teaspoon of Dijon mustard.

Add 2 teaspoons of lemon juice.

Add 1 pinch of salt.

Add 150ml sunflower oil or any neutral cooking oil.

Place blender to the bottom of the glass jar and start blending.

As soon as you notice the bottom quickly turning thick and white, move the blender up slowly about an inch, and continue blending.

Keep moving up slowly until the whole mixture is emulsified. It takes about 5 minutes.

The base mayonnaise is done :-)

To make copycat Japanese mayonnaise, add 1/2 teaspoon of soy sauce

Blend until combined.

Add 1 teaspoon of Japanese rice vinegar.

Blend until combined.

Add 1/4 teaspoon honey.

Blend until combined.

Done :-)

Enjoy :-)

Japanese Kewpie Mayonnaise :-)

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