American Cheesecake Experiment

I've always been a big fan of cheesecake, but while I've made some pretty tasty cheesecakes, I've never been 100% successful. My cakes ended up cracked or the texture too dense. After making a bunch of Japanese cheesecakes and finally having a good oven, I turned my attention back to American cheesecake once again. I tried the chocolate swirl cheesecake recipe found in Better Homes and Gardens' Old-Fashioned Home Baking but with a few minor changes. Instead of 24 oz (680 g) of softened cream cheese, I only had 670 g of cheese instead. I also use 1.5 cup of Oreo crumbs with about 2 tablespoons of melted butter as the crust. The springform pan was 9".

With a hand mixer I mixed cream cheese, imported fine granulated sugar, vanilla, and all purpose flour together until the ingredients were well combined. Then, I added two eggs and a yolk to the mixture and, again using the hand mixer, beat the mixture until just till combined. The mixture was actually still a bit chunky but I switched to my wooden spoon to finish the mixing. After the milk was added, I split the batter in half and added the melted chocolate to one half. I poured all the batter into the pan, made swirls using a small spatula, and placed the cake in the oven.

The starting temperature was 375 but it dropped down to around 350 when the cake was in the oven. I noticed that oil (butter in the crust?) kept dripping out of the springform pan. Thank goodness I placed a cookie sheet under the springform pan. I let the cake bake for around 35 minutes before I checked it. I finally took the cake out around 45-50 minutes when tiny cracks started to appear. I think I could have taken the cake out around 40-45 minutes instead. I let the cake cool on a wire rack for about 15 minutes before I ran my knife around the edge of the cake. I then let the cake cool for another 30 minutes before taking the pan off the cake. I chilled the cake in the fridge overnight after the cake completely cooled on the counter.

The cake received very favorable comments from Wid's parents and Wid. It's surprising because Wid isn't a fan of American cheesecake yet he liked the one I made this time. The cook's sister who's the baker of the family said she likes the swirly pattern. Overall the cake had really good flavor and texture. It's not as fluffy as the ones from Cheesecake Factory, but the texture is still very cheesecake-like. The sweetness is just right for everyone. The edge of the cake was really brown so next time I'll have to remember to use more crumbs and build the crust up about an inch.

Now I'm tempted to try new cheesecake recipe though using 24 oz of cheese at a time is rather scary. Hehe.

Katsudon

I can't believe I have never made katsudon until last week. The in laws looooooved it! The sauce, similar to the one for donburi, was perfect with the pork. Mami said it tasted even better than the Ryoshi version though my dish still isn't as good as the one from Hana. Next time I should get some Japanese or Chinese short grain rice instead of the local rice we normally eat. I'm not sure why the pork was tougher than usual, but at least the flavor was still good. I also want to add a bit of shredded nori and the red pickled ginger for extra taste and color.

Various Experiments

Here are some experiments from the past few months. I've never bothered to post them before because I was lazy.

I made the orange sponge cake and the Japanese cheesecake the same day for Wid's mom, if I remember correctly. The Japanese cheesecake turned out well as usual, but the orange sponge cake didn't because about 3/4 way into baking the gas ran out so the temperature dropped. The volume wasn't as good as before, but it did pass the upside down test. The cake tasted good and it was still moist and fluffy. Here is the original post about the two cakes.


I tried a recipe from the The New Best Recipe. The cake had a wonderful buttery taste, but it was rather compact. It had a more biscuit texture than cake texture. I don't know why it didn't raise like a normal cake. Maybe the baking power wasn't potent enough. The frosting was pretty much whipped melted chocolate and heavy cream; it tasted very decadent!

Gratin Experiment

Wid and I tried some potato gratin from Carrefour a few weeks ago and it was horrible. It was pretty tasteless and I don't know why it was so soupy instead of creamy. I decided to try making my own gratin/scalloped potato instead. I checked out a bunch of recipes but I couldn't find something exactly what I was looking for so in the end I ended up improvising. I cooked the thinly slice potatoes (about half kilo) in half milk, half water solution flavored with bay leaf and salt. I then cooked minced garlic and finely chopped onion in butter and olive oil. After I drained the cooked potato, I line a buttered 9" square pan with potato, then onion, salt/pepper/nutmeg, and then cheddar cheese. I repeat the process and then pour half of cup of milk and heavy cream mixture. I baked the dish covered at 375 F for 30 minutes and then sprinkle about quarter cup of parmasean cheese and let the dish cook for about another 30 minutes.

The result was a bit too dry and peppery to me. I also didn't like the tough crust, and the dish was a bit too thin. Next time I'll add more cream/milk and double the amount of potatoes. I'll also add less parmasean cheese. At least the potato itself tasted really good and well cooked thanks to the step where I cooked the potato in milk. Mami and Wid really liked the dish, but I'll make it better next time.

Sloppy Joe

We had some leftover hamburger buns that I bought last Friday from Bali Bakery. Instead of making burgers, I decided to try sloppy joe, which I've never attempt to try in the past. I looked online and found a recipe, but then all the reviews of that recipe kept changing things. In the end I just took the list of ingredient and made something up myself.

I browned the beef, chopped green pepper, and chopped onions in the pan. I then added quite a bit of ketchup. The recipe called for 3/4 cup of ketchup for 1 lb of meat, but I thought that was too much and possibly had too much ketchup flavor. Luckily I found some old BBQ sauce (2004!!!) and dumped it into the pan. I also added some yellow mustard, some red wine vinegar, water, a tiny bit of salt, and black pepper. While the sauce was simmering, I dealt with the roasted potato in the oven.

I spooned the sloppy joe mixture onto freshly toasted buns and served them to the family. Everyone really liked the smell and the flavor. I think Wid's dad was planning to eat only half of it, but then he took the other half and ate that as well. The hamburger buns were surprisingly good. I think it's the best bun I've tasted in Bali so far. The roasted potato was a hit once again. Maybe next time I'll melt a slice of cheese on top of the sloppy joe mixture.

I will definitely try this dish again since it's so easy and many of the ingredients are found right in the fridge.

Tale of Three Sponge Cakes

Last Thursday I wanted to make the orange sponge cake for my language teacher's birthday. I was fairly successful in my previous attempt. Wid's dad loved it and so did Bonnie the dog who hates oranges. I thought it would be easy to make the cake, and I did everything perfectly until the very end when I took the cake out of the oven. When I inverted the cake to cool, it plopped onto the counter. I guess the 1 hour cooking time as suggested by the cookbook wasn't long to cook the cake completely. I immediately figured out possible sources of problems: oven temperature wasn't high enough, I'm just not quite used to new oven yet, and the pan was too small (it was around 9.5" instead of 10" tube pan).

Since it was so heart breaking to see my cake failed so spectacularly like that, I was determined to try again as soon as possible. My chance came pretty quickly because Wid's mom wanted me to bake a cake for Wid's brother's birthday. She wanted a Japanese cheesecake, which I made, but I decided to make the sponge cake also. This time I used the same pan and recipe except at the end, I took out enough batter to make six cupcakes. The cupcakes were done in about 40 minutes. The cake was in the oven for one hour and 20 minutes. I think the cake might have been done around one hour and 10 minutes, but in the end the cake passed the upside down test and was cooled over night at room temperature.

The cupcakes cooked quickly so I put it in the living room. Wid's dad asked for one, scarfed it down really quickly, and asked for another one immediately. It's pretty cute because of he was so enthusiastic and happy about eating the cake. He said it tasted like a traditional cake (I guess it's similar in taste and texture of a madeline-like cake that's available here) and he liked the cake because it doesn't have a tough/hard crust. This makes the third cake to met his seal of approval. Wid and I ate two of the cupcakes for snack later in the night and in the morning Wid's dad ate another cupcake.

When we brought the two cakes to the birthday lunch, the orange cake was gone the first, followed by my cheesecake (a crowd pleaser usually), and then Wid's sis's (failed) cheese and carrot cake. The orange sponge cake was light and fluffy like before. It wasn't as wet as before but the level of the moisture in this cake was perfect. The crust stayed mostly intact as well, unlike the first cake, because it was taken out of the pan after it was cooled completely. Plus this time no complaints about the cake being under done. For some reason Indonesians think cakes should be oily or bone dry. Overall, I'm very happy my cakes turned out well. Now I'm tempted to try the cheese carrot cake challenge that Wid's mom proposed.

New Oven

We finally got a brand new, non-industrial-strength oven. It's a Modena gas power oven, the same one owned by Wid's sis. It's nice and compact so it doesn't take over an hour to heat up the oven and the temperature actually remains more or less constant, unlike the other oven with the horrible temperature fluctuations of around 50 degrees Celsius. Plus the oven has the following features, which were totally absent in the other one: electronic ignition, safety valves, oven light, thermostat, timer. Ah, wonder of modern convenience. XD The only thing I'm not so keen is the temperature dial because the intervals were too great for my taste.

I was able to do a test run yesterday. I was curious about how well the oven heats up and how accurate was the thermostat so I put my brand new oven thermometer that I bought in US last year in the oven. There was a huge difference in difference in value between the setting of the dial and the temperature read by the oven thermometer. Since I never tested the oven thermometer, I wasn't sure which one is accurate. In the end I decided the oven temperature was lower than it should because the cake I was baking didn't turn golden brown after sitting in the oven for an hour. At least in the end the long baking time and lower oven temperature didn't have a disasterous effect on the cake (it was edible).

Maybe we should get the electrician to come back and recalibrate the oven or I'll just keep using the oven thermometer. At least once the oven reached a set temperature, the temperature remains constant which is one plus over the old oven.

Eggplant Lasagna

I cooked dinner for the family on Nyepi because I was rather bored with the usual stuff. On the day of reflection we cannot show any lights from the house so I had to start cooking early before the sun sets. I decided to make an eggplant lasagna because I'm been itching to try something a bit new with my usual lasagna.

First I started with the red sauce which had tons of garlic, onion, beef, parsley, basil, and tomatoes. While the red sauce is simmering, I made bachmael sauce and grilled slices of eggplant with olive oil. The red sauce came out really, really good because I let it simmer properly for an hour or so. Bonnie sat by my feet the whole time. I guess she thought that I was cooking for her. I then assembled the dish, but since I didn't have enough the sauces and eggplants, I only managed to incorporate two layers of pasta. Oops. Next time I'll use three cans of tomatoes instead of one, and I'll probably use about 3/4 liter of milk instead of half a liter. Also, I'll use four or five of the Asian eggplant instead of two. I sprinkled some dry oregano on top. I let the lasagna cook for about forty minutes at 175 C.

I really liked the taste of the dish though I'm still sad that I didn't put as much pasta in as I wanted. Mami like it that way actually since she said all the restaurants usually put too much pasta and not enough sauce in their lasagna. Papi liked it so much that he actually ate the dish without having to ask for rice later. He then had another slice for the next day's breakfast, and he was sad when last night we told him that we ate the rest of the lasagna for dinner.

Donburi and Miso Soup

I cooked lunch two days in a roll!! Pretty shocking. Haha. Yesterday I made donburi with miso soup for Wid and his parents. The donburi was a better batch than the previous version. The taste was stronger (less diluted than the previous one), and I think the reason is the ratio of meat/onion/shiitaki mushroom to sauce was balanced. Wid's mom said that she likes my donburi so much that she refuses to buy the dish at local Japanese restaurant because mine is tastier and cheaper. Hehe. I think another reason why the dish tasted better is that instead of water, I used the water from mushroom soaking as the base for the sauce. Too bad Wid's bro wouldn't have liked it because he developed a dislike for shiitaki mushroom, but he wasn't there for the lunch so it didn't matter too mucj.

I also made miso soup to go with the donburi. Instead of the usual wakame with tofu and scallions, I replaced the tofu with eggs. Nothing super exciting about the soup. It was salty enough for everyone. Hehe.


Natural light is certainly better but my pictures always come out blurry.

Tonkatsu Sandwich Part 2

It's been months since the last time I made tonkatsu sandwich. Since I was a bit bored with Indonesian/Balinese food, I decided to make the sandwich for lunch yesterday. Normally our cook would cut, bread, and fry the tonkatsu, but since she was busy I went ahead and made the cutlets myself. This time I made the tonkatsu extra thin by cutting thinner slices of meat (about 5-10 mm) and then really pound it super flat. Then, I dipped the slices of meat in flour, egg, and panko. To assemble the sandwich, I toasted two slices of bread, added lettuce, shredded cabbage, thinly sliced onion, tonkatsu coated with the special sauce. Wid wasn't around to make the sauce this time so I did that too and added a bit of lime juice for extra zest. Unfortunately, we didn't have enough sandwich bread so I had to use the "milk" bread (softer and sweeter than normal bread) as substitute for some of the sandwiches. In the end it tasted all right and the smaller size of the bread was actually better suited for the size of the tonkatsu.

No pictures this time, but it pretty much looked like the previous attempt.

Japanese Curry, Again

I tried to make Japanese pork curry again. The flavor is good as always, but it still wasn't as awesome as my last batch. The meat is too hard this time. Once again I coated the meat with soy sauce and corn starch, but I think the problem was with the cooking. The fire was around medium instead of high. There was a lot of oil at the bottom of the pot. The meat didn't stick onto the pot like last time even though I didn't move it around too much. The end result was the meat not seared and browned properly. Oh well, I'll try again next time.

The last batch is quickly becoming the "dream" curry if I don't figure out how I cooked it that time.

Potato Salad

I mentioned Warung Italia in yesterday's post, and from the same place I was inspired to make their version of the potato salad. I really like the creamy texture and the addition of scallions. In the end, mine didn't turn out the same as the restaurant's version, but it's fine because I intentionally made it different. I first cut up the steamed and skinned potatoes into chunks. Instead of adding onions, green/red/yellow pepper, and cucumber, I only added scallions. I then added mustard, mayo, salt, pepper, and sugar. I think the restaurant version doesn't use mustard but has a generous amount of mayo.

For the same dinner I made my usual tuna melt for me and Wid. When his parents came home, Wid's mom say the potato salad, and immediately helped herself to a spoonful. Hehehe. It's always nice to see people being ethusiastic about my food. :D The next day I noticed my potato salad was reheated. I guess people here don't understand the concept of potato salad, but the reheated version tasted fine.

Aligo Olio

I've been very lazy about cooking recently. Maybe it's the weather, maybe it's taking care of Bonnie, or maybe I've been spending way too much time playing Final Fantasy XII. A few days ago, Wid's mom, her brother's family, and I went to Warung Italia for lunch. I like that place because of the nice food at a very reasonable price. I got the gnocchi which was ok, but I still like their selection of canteen food more, like the crepe in bachmael sauce and the potato salad. While we were eating, mami commented that the aligo olio tasted different from other Italian restaurants in the area, and she wondered out loud if we can make this at home. I'm no expert on aligo olio have never heard of this dish until I came to Bali, but from the look and taste of it, it seems like it's prepared in a similar way as spaghetti carbonara (heat the "sauce," cook the pasta, and combine).

Yesterday for lunch I decided to try out this dish. Our cook actually makes a decent version already, but I wanted to experiment. I wanted to see if what I deducted based solely on my observations would produce the same result. While I waited for the water to boil to cook the spaghetti, I minced a lot of garlic and then cooked the garlic and a bit of the hot pepper flakes in olive oil and butter until it was golden brown in a wok. I guess it was like deep frying garlic, like what we do with fried shallots... Once the spaghetti was cooked and drained, I combined the spaghetti with the garlic and oil mix, add more pepper flakes and salt, and cooked the pasta on low to medium heat. I then transferred everything to a pre-warmed bowl.

Wid and mami seemed to like the dish. Mami thought it was very garlicky, which is what she wanted. Wid thought it tasted different but better than the ones in the restaurants. I told him I used butter. Hehe. Mami said next time I should try soaking the garlic in oil for a few hours before cooking for better fragrance.

Some Old Pics

Looking at the disc I noticed I have a couple (not so nice) photos of food from the end of last year. One was of sandwich fillings (tuna fish and egg salad). Another one was a blurry picture of tzatziki, Greek cucumber and yogurt concoction for breads and souvlaki. I have not made tzatziki since my stay in Greece back in 1998. I always loved this dish, but I couldn't make it back in US because it was impossible to find Greek yogurt. Then, I managed to find "Greek-style" yogurt made in Australia at an import store. The dip is actually really easy to make. It consisted of yogurt, olive oil, oregano, cucumber, salt, and a bit of pepper. The end result was a bit more sour than I remembered, but I guess it's because of the yogurt I used. Still, it was great on French bread and it brought back fond memories of Greece. I do miss Greek food a lot, but I haven't found a good cookbook dealing with that subject. Plus, nothing here will be better than home cooking that we had in Greece.

Clam Chowder - Success

The parents-in-laws have been big fans of New England clam chowder, and they have very fond memories from their visits to US. A few days ago Wid's dad reminded me about the soup, and I decided to try making the soup for them last night. Originally, I was supposed to make this around New Year's eve but things were very crazy.

I studied a bunch of recipes before I made the dish. What I ended up doing was a bit of improv, but the result was pretty nice. Since I only had one can of clams, I ended up scaling down the recipe. I cooked several strips of streaky bacon in the pan, and then I used the bacon grease (and a bit of butter) to cook the chopped onion, minced garlic, and potato. I then added flour to the mix and let everything cook a bit longer before adding the clam juice from the can. I then added milk and let the soup boil and then simmer before finally adding the canned clams. A bit of whipping cream, salt, and pepper for flavoring. The soup, with bits of bacon sprinkled on top, was served with crusty French bread.

The soup got a very enthusiastic thumbs up from Wid's parents. The only thing Wid's mom wanted was have more liquid because she wanted to sop up the bread with soup. Wid's dad thought it was perfect (salty enough). I think they were both very surprised by how thick and chunky the soup was, but that's how I like it. Wid's mom liked it so much that she wants to serve the soup for Wid's dad's upcoming birthday. Next time I'll add some chopped celery bits to the soup. I'm happy that the soup turned out well, and for once something actually worked on the first try.

Spinach Pasta

It seemed like such a long time since my last food experiment, but it's kind of hard to cook when Bonnie our puppy and kids (not mine) follow me around. Last night I tried to make spinach pasta using the recipe from Jacques Pepin's The Complete Techniques. First part was boiling the spinach. I really should have taken out the hard stalks right in the beginning, but I forgot local spinach has very fibrous stalks so I ended up removing the bits after boiling the veggie. I squeezed the boiled spinach dry and chopped it up. Next part was making the dough. I ended up using a lot more flour (semolina/high gluten mix) than the recipe called for because the dough was so wet (that's what happens when I live in a tropical island). My well of flour leaked so I got eggs and oil all over the place, but I recovered from that. After letting the dough rest, our cook took over because she's the noodle expert in the house. We had the dough cut into fetuccini size, but the pasta was too thick. The cook said that if it was thinner, then the noodles would stick to each other.

In the end, the noodle didn't turn out as well as I liked. It looked like green, home-made udon than pasta. The noodles were too chewy. I think the problem is two-folds. Maybe I should have used another flour combination (semolina/high gluten/all purpose). Also, the noodles really should have been thinner (flatter) or make it small like angel hair. Oh well, at least the taste was good. Food for thought.

For the sauce again I used Pepin's recipe for bachmael sauce. The sauce turned out much better than my previous attempt. I made a flour and butter mixture which is then whisked into boiling milk. After the sauce thickened, salt, pepper, and nutmeg were added for flavoring. The sauce tasted great and had no lumps. Thank goodness at least one recipe worked.

Spaghetti Carbonara

Happy New Year!!! Wid and I celebrated the start of the new year by getting sick and me banging my finger on a door.

Last night we decided not to go to his bro's house for dinner because we're still not feeling well. I tried to make spaghetti carbonara. The recipe is from my Italian friend Lia, who has been very helpful in answering questions I had about Italian cooking. It's pretty interesting that you have to be pretty organized or else you cannot work fast enough to make the "sauce" properly. While the spaghetti was cooking, I cooked chopped bacon in a bit of olive oil. Once the spaghetti is almost done, I poured the water into a bowl to warm it up and transfer the pasta to the frying pan with a bit of the bacon grease. To the pasta, I added the cooked bacon, four beaten eggs, a bit of garlic (don't know if that's Italian but Wid requested it), salt, and pepper. I mixed everything together on low heat and then poured the mixture into the warmed bowl. I then sprinkled quite a bit of parmasen cheese (sorry, Lia, I couldn't find any goat cheese like you recommended) and stirred again.

The spaghetti carbonara was really tasty and rich. Not quite comfort food in our book, but it certainly was enough as a meal. I'll definitely make the dish again, but I'm rather scared by the amount of cholestrol it contains. Hahaha.

Dinner with Friends

Last Saturday we went to an acquaintance's villa for dinner in Ubud. Since our friends were all bringing something, I decided to make something to bring to the dinner also. In the end I decided on the salty cake (鹹蛋糕) because at least two other people (turned out there was another person) who were Taiwanese, and I figure they might want something familiar yet unusual. I had surprisingly little problem with this cake, and it turned out fluffy and goregous. Too bad I didn't get to eat the cake so I don't know if it was as fluffy as it looked. At least everyone seemed to like it, after recovering from the initial shock that there's meat on the cake. Lexo, our friend from HK, really loved the cake, and he requested Ma La Gao (馬拉糕) next (steamed cake that's commonly found in dimsum).

The villa was goregous and cozy. The host provided so much delicious food. Her dishes seemed like a mix of Asian (Chinese and Indonesian) and western style. Once example was the baked rolls, which had the consistency/density/taste of Chinese buns. My favorite was the dumplings and its spicy, gingery dipping sauce. One couple brought egg rolls which were fanastic because they fried the rolls at the villa. Lexo brought his Cantonese-style chicken soup which was very light and delicious. I managed to figure out the "secret" ingredient by tasting the soup. The interesting thing is that locals aren't very keen on Chinese soup because the soup is not salty and therefore the locals think it's bland. Wid said that many of them judge the saltiness of the dish by how well it salts/flavors the rice.

After the food was the drinking and talking. Carol the host invited a bunch of other expats so it was nice meeting new people. We tried a bunch of wines while others had beer and whiskey. Wine of the Gods brand wines (Pinot noir and a red whose name escaped me at the moment) weren't too bad, but the rose from Hatten was pretty gross.

Next week we're visiting one of Honey's friends' place for early dinner (We met the Australian dude and his local wife at this dinner in Ubud).

I didn't take pics of the dinner, but here's my cake:



Some quick notes about the cake for my own purpose. The pan is around 23.5 cm in diameter. Almost exactly the same preparations were made like the previous cake, except I shortened the cooking time to 16-17 min for the first layer and 10-12 min for the second layer.

Mushroom Velouté with(out) Almonds

Psyched up from the success of the salsa and the chicken, I wanted to try out the mushroom soup recipe from Fast Food My Way. I have never made pureed soup before, but after seeing soups made this way on various shows, I decided to check out this type of soup. The recipe looked very tempting, and I thought it was something Wid's parents might enjoy.

It was amazing how much shallots and mushrooms (button and wood ear) were needed for this soup. The shallots and garlic were browned in butter and then a bit of flour was added to the mixture before stock and mushrooms were added. Once the soup has been cooked for about half an hour, I tasted the soup and found it to be bland. I then realized that our chicken stock is homemade (and also contained no salt). It's amazing how a bit of salt really brings out the flavor of dishes, yet when too much salt is added, the dish becomes inedible. I then used the blender to puree the soup. Heavy cream was added to the soup before the whole mixture was boiled again. To serve the soup, I laddled generous portion onto a bowl. For garnish, I drizzled a bit of the cream and placed a bit of the chopped wood ear mushroom in the center of the bowl. The recipe suggested adding some almonds, but since I'm not sure where to find good almonds here, I had to omit it this time. Fresh French bread and a simple green salad rounded out the rest of the lunch menu.

I really liked the idea of using shallots and wood ears to enhance the flavor of the soup. I was pleasantly surprised about using wood ears (木耳) because it's known more in Chinese cooking than western cooking. It gave a good flavor and crunch to the soup.

Wid's parents thought the soup was excellent and it was even better than the mushroom soup from one of our favorite restaurants (too earthy). I think now Wid's mom is so confident about my ability in soup making even though all I did was follow a recipe, she wants me to tackle New England clam chowder.

Cauliflower and Chicken with Red Hot Salsa

Last night I tried out a recipe from the Jacques Pépin: Fast Food My Way book. This time was the cauliflower and chicken with red hot salsa. I made the salsa from the same book twice already, and it has been a hit with the family. Then, last Thursday Wid's dad and I was watching the show (how I found the cookbook in the first place), and Wid's dad thought the chicken dish looked quite good so I decided to try the recipe. I ended up boiling the cauliflower instead of half steaming/half boiling like the instruction, but it turned out ok to me. The chicken breasts, seasoned with salt and pepper, were cooked in a covered pot with a bit of water and butter. I was so surprised that the chicken was done in about five minutes. Once the chicken and the cauliflower were cooked, the salsa with a bit of olive oil was poured on top for more color and flavor.

Everyone seemed to like the dish, especially Wid's dad who had seconds. Wid didn't like it with the rice, and I have to agree with him there. To us rice need to be paired with something cooked. It reminded Wid's mom of Thai food, while the dish reminded me of Mexican (like a burritto). For today's lunch, our cook reassembled the dish with the leftover chicken by adding more freshly cooked cauliflower. I'm still amazed by how fast the dish was done and how light yet flavorful it was. Fast food indeed.

Tonkatsu Sandwich

Yesterday for lunch Widhy and I decided to make tonkatsu sandwich. We tried this dish a few months ago after we saw this really informative Japanese food show Fit for a King. Wid's bro saw the same episode around the same time as us and also had the idea of trying the dish out, but we beat him to it and made the sandwiches right after we saw that particular episode. It was pretty good last night, but based on our experience from the last attempt, we made little changes to make the dish even better. The sandwich basically consisted of a piece or two thin tonkatsu, sauce made by Widhy, shredded cabbage, thinly sliced onions, thickly cut white bread, and lettuce. The secret of the nice presentation (and keeping the sandwich from falling apart) is pressing the sandwich with a cutting board for 30 seconds. Our cook was very impressed by the sandwich for its taste and look. Wid's parents like the sandwich too. Wid's dad even requested a sandwich made for dinner.

Next time we'll try a croquette sandwich. We don't care that Wid's mom complained that it's too much carb. Haha.

Gâteau au Chocolat (Chocolate Cake)

While I read reading my new book Jacques Pépin's The Complete Techniques, I came across a recipe for the basic sponge cake (génoise) that's very versatile. I decided to try out the recipe because I'm a fan of sponge cakes. The recipe called for two 8-inches round pan but we didn't have any in the house so I ended up using two 9-inches pan instead. What I thought was interesting was the first step where you heat the eggs, sugar, and vanilla over boiling water or the burner to make it lukewarm. Then you "over beat" the mixture for about 10 minutes because you need to add the melted butter at the very last stage. Flour was then sifted and folded into the mixture. Because the oven temperature is almost impossible to adjust, I ended up baking the cakes at around 170-175 C. When the cake came out of the oven, it looked gorgeous with this wonderful golden brown color. The smell was lovely also. Wid's mom thought the cake was a bit undercook, but it looked and felt fine to me. It was a bit hard to get the cake out of the pan, but maybe I was a bit too impatient while waiting for the cake to cool a bit.

After thinking for quite a bit about what sort of cake to make (fruit with cream, chocolate, or tiramisu), I decided on the chocolate cake filled with whipped ganache and coated with more ganache. The next day I assembled the cake. I cut each cake into halves. I couldn't cut the cake into thirds because it was too thin. I made two batches of ganache with semisweet chocolate (instead of half bitter/half semisweet because it's impossible to find bitter chocolate here) and heavy cream. First batch was whipped and flavored with a bit of rum, and I used this to frost each layer of the cake and all over the cake once it was assembled. The second batch was allowed to cook to room temperature which was then poured all over the cake to make the shell/coating. I wanted to follow the direction in the book to make the white frosting, which was used as decorations, but because we ran out of eggs I couldn't make the frosting nor could I make another frosting that I used for neapoleon because we can't find corn syrup. In the end, I combined a bit of powdered sugar with a bit of honey, water, and lime juice to make something that's workable. Unfortunately, I found out later that it doesn't cool well, but at least I got to decorate the cake.

It was really fun trying to frost and decorate the cake (a first for me), but the best and messiest part of the experience was dumping a large amount of ganache on the cake and letting it run off to the counter. The cake looked very amateur-ish, but it tasted great. Widhy really liked the taste of the cake. I thought the chocolate and the sponge cake went well together and not overwhelmingly sweet, but I'm not happy with the texture of the cake. My mom's sponge cakes always been softer and finer in texture, but all the cakes I had here are coarse. I'm pretty sure one of the reason is that the local flour is inferior to flour from US. Maybe once I mastered basic cake making techniques, I can switch to imported flour to make a better cake.

It kind of sucks to be handicapped by not so awesome ingriendents and bad equiptments. It's very frustrating. Well, at least the chocolate was awesome and it did produce really awesome results.

Bavarois

Wid, his parents, and I returned from our trip to Singapore. I managed to find lots of ingredients for Chinese cooking as well as gelatine for cheap. With the last ingredient in hand, I decided to make Bavarois or Bavarian Cream Monday afternoon. The recipe I used was from my mom's Chinese-translated cookbook on creating desserts without an oven. Since the oven in the house is still broken, this cookbook comes in very handy. I already tried Blun's Mangen, which Wid really liked a few months ago. I read in several places on how to make Bavarois and they all seemed to differ in terms of the order of the steps. For this attempt, the steps were modified based a bit. I first soaked the gelatine powder in water. I warmed the milk and the sugar on the stove until the sugar melted. I then added the gelatine. I then beat two egg yolks in a glass bowl and slowed added the sugar-milk mixture to the eggs. I poured the mixture into a sieve, though I think the sieve was too coarse because everything simply passed through it. Instead of immediately putting the mixture on ice, I returned it to the stove and cooked the cream until it coated my wooden spoon. When I was able to draw a line on the spoon with the coated cream, the cream was the correct consistency. What was interesting is when the cream was almost done, I could hear the change in the sound of the spoon hitting the side of the pot. I let the cream cool in an ice bath as I beat the whipping cream. In my first attempt at beaten the cream, for some mysterious reason, the cream started to curdle like when milk and something acidic were combined together so I had to redo the batch. Once the cream was whipped, I had trouble incorporating the cream and the whipped cream. I think the problem was I added the whipped cream to the cream instead of vice versa. Eventually everything was mixed in nicely and I placed the dishes into the refridgerator.

To serve the Bavarois, I added freshly whipped cream and a piece of Hersey Kiss on each dish of cream. Everyone seemed to like it, but it might be too sweet for Wid's parents' pallet. I thought it was not too sweet, but next time I'll decrease the amount of sugar. I'm also tempted to make a chocolate version later.

Home-cooked Meal with Friends

Wid and I invited our friends Sulis and Lexo over for dinner while Wid's parents were in Bangkok back in early November. Since we know they love Japanese food, I decided to cook Japanese food for them. We had such a bad luck with gathering ingredients that day. Our favorite grocery store totally let us down because they didn't have sushi-grad tuna. We opted for salmon instead. They even ran out of kampyo which is needed for futomaki. In the end we had to adjust our menu to the ingredients that we did have on our hands. We had many of the dishes that we made previously, but this time I tried a new dish--tomago. Unfortunately, we didn't have a nice rectangle pan to make the egg omlet look good. First pan I used was our normal (kind of crappy) pan and the result was disasterous because the egg got stuck on the pan. The cook found the non-stick griddle pan for me and that was a better choice for making this kind of omlet. The size of the pan was still too big so I had quite a bit of trouble rolling and folding the soft eggy sheet into an appropriate shape (rectangular box). It wasn't very pretty but at least it tasted good.

The rest of the meal consisted of oyakodon, nasu miso, sushi (spicy salmon, avacado, cucumber), miso soup, and goma-ae. Widhy had a revelation about how to improve his spicy salmon sushi, so he was very happy about that and the resulting sushi. I didn't have too much trouble getting everything together, and I was done at 7 PM sharp, which was the first for me. Unfortunately, our friends got lost and they didn't arrive until about 7:30. At least the food didn't get cold and everyone seemed to enjoy the food. They gave us a very nice bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon (Fortant 2004, from Southern France). Sulis and Lexo want to invite us over to their place next time and Lexo will cook for us. I look forward to see what they'll make and enjoy our time with them.

Italian-style Meatball

This dish was made back in October 20, but I've been neglecting this journal because of lots of family activities and then the death of our favorite dog. Now I have a bit of catching up to do.

It seems like spaghetti and meatball is more likely an American invention than an authentic Italian dish, but it's still mighty tasty in my book. This was my second attempt at making meatballs, and I feel that I was more successful with this batch than the first trial. I pretty much used the same recipe as last time to make the meatballs, but I put more care into combining the ingredients and forming the meatballs so that they didn't fall apart this time. The sauce is the usual that I learned from an Italian friend of mine.

Japanese Curry

While Wid's parents are away, I usually can get in a bit of cooking done on my own without worrying about pleasing people or about food being sent away to the other families. Last night I made Japanese-style curry, which is one of my favorite dishes, but because most people here don't like Japanese curry (not hot enough for them), I haven't made this dish since I came to Bali. Instead of following the recipe from my favorite cookbook, I went with the set of instructions my mom gave me years ago when I first started to learn cooking. The funny thing is the "recipes" my mom gave me were more like guideline than actual recipes. Things were a bit crazy at first because I couldn't find the vegetables or the meat in the kitchen, and then I discovered that my vegetable peeler disappeared so I ended up peeling the vegetables with a knife. Another annoying thing I discovered was that one of the carrots became rather wooden (a tough, fiberous ring in the middle was present, which made cutting very difficult). At least later we found out that the carrots were very sweet and tasty.

After chopping all the ingredients, I was ready to cook. Instead of using oil, I used butter for this batch. Garlic, pork (tenderized with soy sauce and corn starch), and onions were cooked first, and then carrots and potatoes were added later. Instead of water only, I used mostly milk with a bit of hot water to cover all the vegetables and meat. Once the carrots and potatoes became soft, I added the curry cubes. Curry cubes are awesome and so convinient, but one of these days I'm planning to make Japanese curry from scratch.

Wid really liked the curry. I think it's one of my best batches so far, thanks to the tips from my mom.

Sukiyaki

Last night Wid's parents requested sukiyaki for dinner so we could use up the chunk of imported beef that we bought from Makro before Wid's bro takes it. I did the preparation (cutting the vegetables and making the cooking sauce) while Wid did the actual cooking. This batch we had large green onion, shiitake mushroom, another kind of mushroom whose name escapes me right now, bok choy, shirataki threads, and tofu. I parboiled the shirataki threads and soaked the shiitake mushroom. What made the sukiyaki turned out so well this time is Wid figured out how to cook the dish properly. He used medium heat during most of the cooking process. Once the meat and vegetables were added to the pan, he covered the food with some of the cooking sauce. After the cooking sauce boiled down a bit, he added the remaining sauce (and the tofu and the shirataki thread) and let the dish boil again. We might need to get a smaller pan because we didn't have enough sauce to cover the ingredients. It would be nice if we can find a real sukiyaki pan so we can cook this on the table instead of in the kitchen.

Besides the main dish, we also made nasu miso (trial number 3) and a new dish which consisted of shiitake mushroom and cabbage cooked in the mushroom soaking juice. I think the nasu miso turned out better this time because I didn't boil the eggplant until it was mushy. We were surprised how much Wid's dad liked the nasu miso because in the previous attempts, he didn't make any comments. This time he scarfed down most of the dish. The mushroom and cabbage dish was pretty good, not too salty and full of mushroom flavor, but I think the cabbage wasn't cooked long enough. At least it's pretty tasty and very healthy.

The Return of Croquettes

Last night I made croquettes again. Instead of using the same recipe as last time, I tried the recipe posted on the official website of the Japanese drama/comedy show Kuitan. Overall the recipes were quite similar (about the same amount of potato, onion, and meat), but the details are a bit different. I also made some modifications of my own to, hopefully, improve the taste. Instead of boiling potatoes, they were steamed with their skin on to make the potatoes less soggy. I stir-fried the onion in oil and butter before adding the beef. Salt and pepper were added to the meat and onion for flavoring. The potatoes were mashed, seasoned with salt, and combined with the meat mixture before milk and finely chopped parsley were added. Then, patties were formed and coated with flour, egg, and panko before deep frying. We had to get one of the eggs from the offering stand because we ran out of eggs in the fridge. Hahaha. I had a couple of potatoes left so I mashed those and added chopped parsley, salt, and milk. I then added a piece of cheese in each patty to make cheese croquettes.

Widhy and I both thought the croquettes were much better than my last batch, but we wondered why his parents didn't make any comments. I guess the Chinese food we had overpowered the taste of the croquettes. Oh well. We'll have more croquettes today~

Next time we should have some finely shredded cabbage too.

Japanese Dinner (udons and more)

Wid's mom requested that we make udon and sushi. Initially, I planned to make croquettes, but I forgot to get onions. Instead I made "fluffy boiled potatoes" (Jagaimo no Tosa-fumi) that consisted of potato, soy sauce, sake, salt, and bonito flakes. This dish tasted better than my last attempt. I think it's because I used a lot more bonito flakes. I also sprinkled a bit of parsley on top to give it an extra flavor. It would be nice to get light-colored soy sauce so it doesn't make everything brown looking, but I can't find it anywhere here, even at my favorite Japanese grocery store.

Nothing too exciting with the udon and the broth that went with the noodles. One thing I did change this time was I didn't use bonito flakes as part of the soup stock (only used dashi powder), but Wid's mom noticed. She liked the broth with the bonito flakes better. Other than that, the soup consisted of soy sauce, sugar, mirin, and salt. I cooked the shitaki mushroom in the broth. Wakame seaweed was added right at the end when I reheated the broth. I poached eggs in the water that I cooked the udon. I just realized that I forgot to add the chopped scallions to the bowl because I had so many thing going on at once. Oh well.

Once again, I made inari for Wid's dad and Wid made his now famous spicy tuna roll. His latest batch was tastier than his previous attempts because of the nice balance of tuna and spicy sauce flavors. Also, the tuna mix was just more flavorful than before. Wid's mom loved it so much that she kept saying how tasty it was.

The in laws requested that we cook Japanese food again this Saturday, which I'm fine with as long as Wid's mom doesn't invite more uninvited guests at the last minute.

Beijing-Style Noodle Soup (麵疙搭)

Last night for dinner I finally had the opportunity to try out a recipe from my new Chinese Rice and Noodles cookbook from Wei-Chuan. This dish is called "home-made noodle soup with green onions," but its Chinese name (麵疙搭) is actually more descriptive and interesting. This dish is Beijin cuisine. What makes this dish interesting, I think, is the shape of the home-made noodle, which is basically bits of pulled dough.

First, I made the dough for the noodle by mixing flour and water. While I let the dough rest, I prepared the broth which is used to cook the noodles. The sections of scallions were stir-fried in oil before the dried shrimp and pork were added to the mix. Once the meat changed color, I added some soy sauce and lots of water. I brought the stock to boil before adding the bits of dough teared off from the big chunk of dough. I actually saw this method of cooking on a show on Discovery or National Geographic and I thought it was something fun to do. Wid joined in the fun and threw in bits of dough. To flavor the broth, salt, pepper, and sesame oil were added. Then, right before serving, some chopped scallions were added.

The taste was surprisingly light even though it was a bit oily. The cooked sections of scallion were surprisingly sweet and flavorful. The slices of pork was too large so next time I'll try to cut smaller pieces. The noodles were good too, but Wid's dad wasn't too keen on it. I guess it's because that's not what he expected of noodles.

Wei-Chuan cookbooks are awesome. They haven't failed me yet!

Tsao Bing (燒餅)

Earlier this week I tried to make tsao bing (燒餅), which is a delicious pan-fried or baked breakfast treat that is often stuffed with meat floss or Chinese crueller and washed down with a nice, steaming bowl of soy milk. I made one attempt before when I first got my awesome Chinese Snacks cookbook from Wei-chuan, but it failed miserably (bad flour, bad cooking technique). In order to learn the proper method of cooking tsao bing, again I relied on my mom's example.

To make the tsao bing, I had to make the roux first, which is basically flour cooked in hot oil. While the roux cooled, I started on the dough. Like the "hot dough," I first mixed hot water into the flour, and then cold water was added to the dough mixture. Once the dough was rested and the roux cooled, I tried to assemble the bing. First, the dough was rolled out and roux, salt, and flour were poured on top of the flatten dough. Then, everything was rolled up jelly roll style before cutting into small pieces. I tried to pinch the ends before each cut, but the roux still spilled out of the dough, which made the counter, the hands, rolling pin, etc. oily and gross. I still don't know how to fix this problem, but even though the result wasn't very pretty, the bing was edible. Once I folded all the dough pieces, dippd the pieces in sesame, and rolled them flat, I pan fried them. I had to make sure the pan and the oil were hot before adding each piece. Once the bing was placed on the pan, the temperature was lowered. The tsao bing was done once each side turned slightly translucent and golden brown. Like I said before, the tsao bing wasn't pretty but it tasted really good so I guess mission (sort of) accomplished.

Pot Stickers (鍋貼)

After the third attempt, the pot stickers (鍋貼) finally looking and tasting more presentable. I never had any problem making the dough or the pot stickers themselves. The problem lie in the cooking. A couple months ago, when I tried to make the pot stickers for the very first time, they got stuck to the pan, and we had no idea why that happened. When Wid and I were visiting my parents, Ma showed us how she cooked the potstickers, and I wanted to see if I can try out what I learned. Thursday night we made some pot stickers. The filling consisted of pork, Chinese chives, a bit of sesame oil, salt, water, and soy sauce. I wanted to have some shrimp added to the mixture, but we didn't have any in the house. The dough was the so called hot dough which consisted of flour, boiling water, and cold water. Making the pot stickers was time consuming but relatively easy, but when it came to the cooking, things started to go wrong. The pot stickers were stuck to each other before going into the pan. I though the dough was too wet and others suspected the juice from the meat mixture seeped into the dough making everything stickier. Too much oil was added to the pan, and someone kept moving the pot stickers during the cooking so the bottom didn't get to brown. Then I added the flour/water/sesame oil/vinegar mixture, but it was thought that not enough liquid was in the pot so more water was added. In the end, while the pot stickers didn't get stuck to the pan like the first time, the texture was not correct either. The bottom was not crunchy and golden brown enough and the top was too soggy.

I had some dough and meat mixture left over so I tried again next day for lunch. This time the plate holding the pot stickers were coated with plenty of flour to prevent the pieces sticking to each other or to the plate. I tried to lessen the amount of oil this time, and I laid the pieces in a more orderly manner once the oil and the pan were hot. I waited until the bottom started to brown, and I checked to make sure the pieces were not sticking to the pan before adding half a cup of water and covered the pan. The pot stickers were allowed to cook for about 6 minutes, and then I made sure most of the water evaporated before taking the pot stickers out. In the end the pot stickers were getting a bit stuck to the pan, but we were able to remove all of them from the pan without the bottom getting fixed on the pan.

Wid made the dipping sauce which consisted of soy sauce, water, vinegar, and ginger. The end result is the following:


Wid suggested to add a bit of minced ginger into the meat mixture, and I think that'll be quite good. I'll also add shrimp to the mix. I think the lack of shrimp made the meat filling tasted a bit too dry. Wid's mom was telling me about the time she saw a dumpling master making dumplings/pot stickers. She seemed very impressed, and I wouldn't mind seeing a professional do it.