Bite On It!

I have been looking for a good recipe for meat balls for quite sometime. I found many recipes using breadcrumbs but I’ve never bought any before so was quite hesitant to buy a big packet only for making meat balls. Since I am into bento now, it will be another good finger food to store and  pack!

While I was flipping one of the many recipe books in my collection, I discovered one recipe which is quite easy. Though it has a lot of ingredients but I decided to do without most of them except some core ones. The recipes asked for water chestnuts, dried prawns and spring onions but I don’t have those with me so I omitted them. Instead I added shallots and breadcrumbs.

I was truly surprised with the results. It tasted better than I’ve anticipated! I guess what is more important is, they don’t disintegrate when I fry them… which was what happened to some of those I did in the past. Finally, I discovered the masking ingredient, which is the good ole white bread!

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Ingredients

• 200g Lean meat (I used pork loin)
• 2 Shallots (finely chopped)
• 1.5pcs White bread (removed crust & cut into mini squares)
• 1tbsp Sunflower or Olive oil (original recipe asked for sesame oil)
• 2tbsp Corn flour
• 2 Egg yolks
• 2tbsp Breadcrumbs
• Salt and pepper for taste

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Methods

1. Clean and minced the meat until very fine and mix with all the other ingredients.
2. Use a spoon and scoop wanted amount and roll into balls. Compact the meat balls by throwing the balls into your palm a few times (this will help hold all the ingredients together).
3. Heat up a medium pan with half filled oil and deep fry the meat balls till cook and turned golden brown. Lift up and place them onto paper towel to absorb excess oil.

Though I am a part time cupcake seller, I must confess I seldom bake any other stuff besides… well, cupcakes! My oven is solely for my cupcakes and sometimes my Ah Beng will use it to make some grill stuff and that’s about it.

After checking out a few new blogs, I decided that I need to be adventurous again and try new things with my oven. Then I spotted this really nice looking bread which is called broiche from Javapot’s blog. I must say it looked really tempting then so I quickly went to get some bread flour and sweet potatoes.

Since I was in Jusco, I bought the Japanese sweet potatoes thinking it might have more flavors as compared to our local grown ones.

This is my very first time baking anything using bread flour or bread as a matter of fact! Though I have helped my mom a couple of times in making steamed paus I’ve never ventured into bread making alone.

One thing about bread making is, the proofing period which can takes a while. Being so inexperience in this area, I can say that I have no ideas how long I should proof my dough! Well, at least the broiches turned out quite ok… when it is fresh out of the oven!

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Ingredients

• 125g mashed sweet potato
• 210g bread flour
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp instant yeast
• 36g sugar (add slowly)
• 107g butter, room temperature

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Method

1. Mix and knead all ingredients except sugar and butter. I’ll suggest using a gloves as the ingredients will sticks onto your fingers.
2. After 5 min, add sugar slowly. (I added mine too soon so that’s why it did not raise as much as it should)
3. Add butter after 15 min and knead until you get a soft pliable dough.
4. Let the dough rest in room temperature for 1 hour.
5. Divide the dough into size required (the dough should be light and airy under your fingers but still a little sticky so u glaze your palms with some butter before handling).
6. Cover/wrap and refrigerate dough over night.
7. Next day, shape chilled dough as desired and placed them into greased tins.
8. Cover/wrap shaped dough and rest in warm place for another 1.5 hours or at least double in bulk. (I was a little anxious and inexperience so did not let it proof enough)
9. Bake in a pre-heated oven @ 190 degrees for 30-35 min or until golden brown (including the base).
10. Cool in tin for 8 min before removing them and completely cool them on rack.

Some of you know that I am into bento-ing right now and has been learning to make simple snacks to ‘decorate’ my bentos. I can tell you it is not as easy as it seems as my boy is beginning to be very picky with his food now. A few weeks ago, he told me he don’t like vege! All this while he has been a good boy eating almost anything I served him.

Sometimes it can be brain cracking… since I have to think about the designs to come out for my cupcake projects. Even though I don’t have much time to spare these days, I will still try to lurk in some really good recipes blogs to get some ideas. Today’s idea came from my favorite blog. Aunty Yochana has been very inspiring and I learned a lot just by browsing her blog.

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I have some white bread and want to get rid of them so my fridge will have some space so I decided to bake some bread pizza. I had some tomato paste from one of my pizza making adventure earlier and thought it a good idea to clear the tomato paste.

To make the beautiful shape, I used a flower cutter to cut and squeeze each piece into the muffin tray after spreading them with some tomato paste.

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Ingredients
(Make 6)

• 6 slices of Bread (White or Wholemeal)
• 1 slice Chicken ham (cut into small squares)
• 1/4 cup Mixed vegetables (corn, green peas & carrot)
• Mayonnaise (to mix with ham and mixed vege)
• 1 slice cheddar cheese (cut into small strips)
• Tomato paste (for spreading on bread)

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Methods

1. Cut out the flower shaped bread using the cutter and spread a thin layer of tomato paste in the centre and squeeze into muffin pan cavities.
2. Mix Mayonnaise and mixed vegetable and ham pieces and slowly scoop into each ‘flower bowl’ and topped with cheddar cheese strips.
3. Bake in pre-heated oven for 10 minutes at 180 degree Celsius.

I think this is the first time I post a dessert recipe here. I seldom make Chinese desserts or tong-sui as I don’t really have a sweet tooth… yeah, I hardly eat those cakes and cookies I baked too!

I have been wanting to cook this particular tong-sui a few times but every time my sweet potatoes will either rot away for being left too long or I ended up steaming them. Then I bought some sago a couple of weeks back for some agar-agar and decided to try adding them into this particular dish. Well, it turns out well!

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Ingredients

• 2 Purple sweet potatoes (medium size - cubed)
• 1/4 cup Sago (washed)
• Water (approximately 1.5 to 2 liter)
• Gula melaka or Coconut sugar (sweetness depends on taste buds)
• Pandan leaves (optional)

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Methods

1. Skined the sweet potatoes and cut them into small chunks or medium cubes.
2. Boil water in a stock pot, toss in cubed sweet potatoes when it boiled and turn on low fire. If you have pandan leaves, bundle them up and toss in together. Let it boil for 30 mins to 45 mins stirring occasionally.
3. Add in the gula melaka and stir till all are melted.
4. Pour in the sago and let it boil for about 5 mins, continue to stir so they won’t get lumpy.

I have 2 over-ripe banana sitting on my table and I really wanted to use them to make banana cake but 2 is not enough for the recipe I have so what shall I do? Another was, I was lazy to bring out the mixer coz I already going to have some cupcake projects later in the week… excuses.. excuses…

Then I remember I came across a few sites about making steam cakes and I thought, why not? So I went to google about ‘Steamed Banana Cakes’ and first on the list was from Chow Times.

Was extremely happy that the ingredients called for the recipe are so easy! Save me lots of time and electricity too! And of course they are less oily (no butter) and not heaty at all! The only thing that needs to compromise is of course the texture and taste… got to eat them fresh!

I took the opportunity to try out my silicon cups… just to test them if they can take the heat… and yes they did! The cakes turn out to be quite springy… like sponge… hehheehe

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Ingredients

• 2 ripe banana, mashed (if you have large banana, use one will do)
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon oil
• 2 teaspoons water
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 cup icing sugar (I used brown sugar)
• 100g (close to 1 cup) all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons of semi-sweet chocolate chips or raisins (optional)

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Methods

1. Mashed the bananas and leave aside.
2. Mix the rest of the ingredients in another mixing bowl and it is well mixed add in the mashed banana.
3. Heat up the steamer and steam till all the banana cupcakes are cooked which is around 10-15 minutes.