Air-flown desserts from Hong Kong

[Sweets from Hong Kong]

These cute little mochis in unusually creative flavors were a little surprise gift from T's recent business trip to Hong Kong. Milk Tea, Yellow Split Peas with Coconut Milk, Red Beans and Green Tea... how funky is that. My favorite flavor is Tofu with Fresh Mango, which got me hooked during my Christmas visit to the city. The filling is a smooth mélange of fresh mango bits in a mango-flavored tofu puree.

Traditionally, mochi is made by pounding steamed glutinous rice in a large wooden mortar with a wooden mallet until it becomes a powder form. This is made into a dough and formed into little balls with sweet red bean paste as a filling. The type of rice used is a stickier variety of rice - glutinous rice - different from the steamed rice on everyday dining tables.

Originally a Japanese confection, these small, round rice cakes with fillings are getting into the mainstream of Asian confections. To be fair, the Chinese has a variant version of mochi, which are called "lo mai chi", translated as glutinous cakes. It is so popular that even ice-cream versions can be found in the frozen department of Singaporean supermarkets.

The next time you're in Asia, do look out for them!

A whole lot of recipes from Weekend Herb Blogging

From Seattle to Sydney, we've got 30 cooking ideas (including mine) for last week’s Weekend Herb Blogging. This should make a home dinner planner very happy for the remainder of spring with all these recipes featuring healthy vegetables, herbs, spice and grains. Let’s dive right through the list...

Meatball Barley Stew
Location: Vendee, France
Katie’s official good-bye to winter is this stew that she claims doesn’t require hours of cooking and could be adapted with ground chicken or turkey, and even a vegetarian version. Read more at her blog Thyme for Cooking.

Beans and Beans with Garlic and Tomatoes
Location: Seattle
Finding an innovative way of cooking green beans, Kaykat of Cooking From Matoz decided to create a gravy-laden dish with a can of cannellini beans and a generous portion of chopped tomatoes and crushed garlic.

Rogan Josh: the ultimate comfort food
Location: Toronto
Elizabeth from “Blog from OUR kitchen” features the Bay Laurel for WHB. Her recipe is adapted from a Kashmiri dish named Rogan Josh. She has made her own version with pork instead of lamb.

Salt Lassi
Location: Mexico
Relatively new to the food-blogging scene, chef and cooking school owner Victoria of Flavors of the Sun gives us a run down on everything we need to know about cooking with salt, along with her simple yoghurt drink.

Mushroom Fried Rice
Location: USA
DK of Culinary Bazaar shares with us a rice recipe using a variety of fresh and dried mushrooms and a whole lot of other vegetables. Sounds like a tasty and complete vegetarian meal.

Peruvian Quinoa Stew
Location: Sydney
Anna from Morsels and Musings conquered three of her 2008 Food Challenge and succeeded in replicating a Latin American recipe from the cookbook “Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home. Her key ingredient is the quinoa grain, something that I would love to attempt as well.

Spring Carrots with Mint & Quinoa
Location: Southern California
Another quinoa creation, this time by White on Rice Couple’s Dianne and Todd. Their recipe is lovingly made with miniature palm-size carrots harvested from their very own edible garden.

Roasted Asparagus Recipe with Creamy Tahini-Peanut Dipping Sauce
Location: Utah
From the creator of WHB, Kalyn adapted a sesame-peanut sauce to go with roasted asparagus (instead of the usual way of cooking them in hot water). Sounds like a very easy starter, good for appeasing hungry guests at the dining table.

Borscht
Location: Southern California
Wandering Chopsticks features what she calls a “gloriously vibrant soup” with Ukrainian roots. Borscht is made with beets, and is said have been brought in to America by Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe.

Pineapple Prawns
Location: Clermont-Ferrand, France
Pamela aka The Cooking Ninja shares with us a stir-fried pineapple and prawns dish. Learn more about the pineapple fruit and try her tip of using its juice as a meat-tenderizer.

Nectarine and Raspberry Strudel
Location: Melbourne
Johanna of Green Gourmet Giraffe gives us this amazing fruit-paring dessert recipe complete with photographs of the assembly process and lots of research on the vitamin-rich nectarine fruit.

Sticky Ginger, Fig and Nut Loaves
Location: Sydney
Lemonpi has got some sticky ginger, fig and nut loaves to share. This cake is simple and not too sugary, and the figs make this perfect weekend treat fibre-rich and low in fat.

Lemon & Honey Drink
Location: Sydney
Zoe of Puku shares with us a soothing citrus remedy and tells us why lemons are great for cold and flu. Her entry is also loaded with lovely pictures of her cooling creation.

Mint Tea
Location: Melbourne
Featuring one of my favorite herb, Haalo from “Cook Almost Anything” creates a batch of mint tea using fresh mint leaves and gunpowder green tea leaves. Learn about the goodness of the herb on her blog.

Kohlrabi and Apple Salad
Location: Cesseras, France
Jennifer of Like to Cook introduces us to the curious looking kohlrabi or cabbage turnip. Love this healthy fruit and veg combination. Thanks for your courage of picking that first kohlrabi up from your market!

Chervil Kohlrabi Soup
Location: Northern Germany
Also using Kohlrabi as a key ingredient, Ulrike of Küchenlatein creates a soup with the addition wonder herb Chervil, which is purported to aid digestion and liver and gall functions.

Brussels Sprout Stir Fry with egg, chilli, ginger and garlic
Location: Oxford, UK
Sophie of Mostly Eating gives us a fun way to up our Brussels sprouts intake with her stir fry. She convinces us that growers have been working hard to come up with sweeter tasting varieties of the vegetable, and she offers a list of other recipes to tinkle with.

Herbed Hemp Seed Balls
Location: New York
The Chocolate Lady tries her hands on these balls with lot of other seeds that she thought turned out a bit more like falafel balls. A great finger food that also goes along perfectly good with pasta and sauce.

Olive Chicken Stew
Location: Lima, Peru
Olive-obsessed Gretchen of Canela & Comino gives us a lesson that olives cannot be eaten straight from the tree; only the processed are edible. Her recipe is a great complete meal fit to feed the entire family.

Vegetable Lumpia
Location: Philippines
Spring rolls are a mainstay in various Asian cultures, and Lumpia is the native name of these delicate parcels in Gay of Scientist in the Kitchen’s home country. This version is absolutely fun with its use of sweet potato, taro and Thai basil.

Shrimp Risotto with Sugar Snap Peas
Location: Canada
Jerry’s risotto recipe features the use of a homemade shrimp stock and a complex intermingling of flavours including a hint of mint, a touch of chili pepper spice and lotsa sugar snap peas.

Sun-dried Tomato Hummus
Location: Atlanta, USA
Chris of Melecotte gives us a fun variation of my favorite party food, the Middle Eastern chickpea dip, Hummus. Check this one with the addition of sun-dried tomatoes and parsley. Absolute yumm!

Kimchi Pork Stir Fry
Lcoation: California
Tigerfish of Teczcape is getting into the "heart" of kimchi -- Korean pickled cabbage. Recounting a little story she heard one day, she explains how a kimchi pork stir-fry is done.

Just-About-Spoonbread Quick Corn Muffins
Location: Iowa City, USA
Genie of the Inadvertent Gardener has got all the mileage for her prized Iowa sweet corn which she even got some frozen from last summer. There’s more you can do with basic cornbread and muffin mix with the addition of fresh corn kernels. Wicked.

Chicken Tikka with Onion Relish
Location: Victoria, Australia
Pam from the Backyard Pizzeria has got a great chicken dish you can’t resist, especially for a spice-seeker like me. This recipe has got the chicken sitting in a yoghurt marinade, complete with the flavours of coriander, garam masala and just a hint of chilli.

Lazy Potatoes
Location: India
Sra of When My Soup Came Alive has got it right with this spice-laden baked potato dish for that lazy day in. Her rethoric of “lazy days are great for food” proves that with the odds and ends that you have at home you can end up with a stunner.

Colcannon
Location: USA
Getting ahead of St. Patrick’s Day, Glenna of A Fridge Full of Food gets into the festive mood with her cardomom-spiced colcannon served with corned beef and green bread.

Rose Petal Ice Cream
Location: Somewhere on the globe
Ever thought about spiking delicate desserts with rose petals like what the Indian Maharajahs do? Snehal of Gel's Kitchen Blog shares this creation using perfect rose blossoms from her garden.

Taro Root Fry
Location: Glendale, California
Divya of Dil Se tries her hands for the first time at some taro root fries, easy enough to give yourself a try.

Butternut Squash and Pancetta Risotto
Location: Alaska
Laurie of Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska made up a batch of butternut squash risotto that looks absolutely lovely. She even shares with us a bonus accompanying recipe, pan-fried scallops and capers.

Fried Onions for Indian Cooking
Location: Croatia
Maninas gives us the run down on how to brown onions, a base for most classic Indian cooking. She tells you what fats to use, how to slice it and how to brown them to the edge short of burning.

Want to participate? Weekend Herb Blogging for March 16-23 is hosted by Katie from Thyme for Cooking. Send your entries to thyme2 (dot) kate (at) gmail (dot) com before Sunday March 23.

Tanja's sunflower & pumpkin seed wholemeal bread

[Down to the last morsel]

As I butter the last piece of homemade bread that my friend Tanja baked for me, I pondered upon the possibilities of the aroma of freshly baked bread coming out of my own oven. I think what really appeals to me about making your own bread is knowing what goes in the ingredients. As a German living in Singapore, I bet what drove Tanja into making her own breads is the lack of hearty country loafs available. The local palate ranges from the fluffy to the chewy, more like a brioche than a bread.

Cookies, brownies, sweetbreads, all the baked goods not requiring proper machinery, I've been able to churn out with ease. But there's a whole lot of dog-eared pages in my recipe books that are classified for a later time when I've got more kitchen space for that bright red heavy-duty KitchenAid cake mixer... and now I'm toying with the idea of a bread machine.

It ain't gonna be an easy task, selecting the perfect bread machine. So far the ones I've seen on the market are pretty much aesthetically challenged. Armed with the curiosity of how bread machines actually work, I scoured the Net and found a fact sheet titled "Selecting a Bread Machine." How wild is that? There are also loads of discussions and forums on the Net about hand-kneading versus using the bread machine. I suppose there's no fool-proof way. Both methods require lots of trials to perfect the recipe.

For Weekend Herb Blogging, which I'm hosting this week, I thought it would be fun to feature Tanja's own adapted recipe. She's kind enough to sit down and transcribe it for me. I had thought about sending the recipe to my mum who is an avid baker and bakes her own bread as well. This recipe is really precious since it's the labored result of all of Tanja's trials and errors. THANK YOU TANJA!! For those who are gonna really try it out, I hope you get to taste the same wholesome goodness as this last piece I'm savoring.

Wholesome Bread a la Tanja

200gm plain flour
150gm wholemeal flour
1 packet dry yeast (about 1 tbsp)
1.5 tbsp fresh lemon juice or rice vinegar
1 potato
30gm wheat grain
30gm barley grain (or any other preferred grain)
40gm sunflower seeds
40gm pumpkin seeds
300ml water
1 tbsp butter
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tbsp sugar

Cook potato in about 300ml of boiling water in a saucepan. Add wheat and barley into the boiling water to soften them, half way through before potato is done. Drain and place cooked ingredients plus 250ml of the cooking water into a food processor or blender. Give it a few pulses until it becomes a mushy consistence. Add salt and sugar and let it cool down a little.

Mix both the plain and wholemeal flour and the yeast together and build a mountain with a hollow in the middle. Add the processed mushy grain fluid into the hollow, followed with butter and lemon juice (or vinegar).

Mix it all together and form a dough. The longer you knead the dough, the better it will rise, so keep kneading. Place moist and clean dish towel over dough and let it rest and rise for about 30 to 45 minutes.

Meanwhile, roast seeds in a dry Teflon pan (do not add any fats). Stir them every now and then and watch them carefully to prevent scorching. Let them cool, while waiting the dough to rise.

Knead dough again, add more flour when needed and add the roasted seeds. Knead carefully and leave it to rest again for an additional 30 to 45 minutes.

Now more kneading to be done; add some flour when needed and knead until you have a dough firm enough to form your desired loaf shape. Leave it on an oven-tray letting it rest and rise for another 10 minutes. Bake in preheated oven (180ºC) for 50 to 60 minutes.

Tip: You can place a cup of water into the oven; the water vapor will give your loaf a crispy crust.

Lunch at Waterstone Piccadilly

[Salmon and chive quiche with chickpea salad]

I have taken the effort to think about some interesting things to write about my food experiences in Asia, but I have not been able to work with the log of pictures I have captured in my camera. There's a story idea related to Hong Kong, and one to my trip to Bangkok last weekend, and certainly there's one coming up on an island resort in Malaysia, which I'll be visiting tomorrwow, spending a long weekend of sun, sea, and savor.

As I've mentioned in my previous posts, there are several places in Europe that I've visted last year, which I've not finished blogging. So here you go, a little tip on a good meeting place in central London. A few reasons why this place is on my recommendation list, with the largest appeal being it's not too crowded (you can actually get a seat) and it offers a rooftop view of the city. Also, it bookstore location is great for killing time if your date is fashionably late. And lastly, they have a decent serving of lunch food in a classy casual environment.

Set on the fifth floor of what is coined the "largest bookstore in Europe", the cafe/bar in Waterstone's Picadilly offers a great selection of quiche, soups, and sandwiches. My picture above can attest to the quality and presentation of the food, I hope. I was told that the former tenant Simpson’s of Piccadilly was London's iconic menswear department store. The building was also the first British shop to feature an uninterrupted curved-glass frontage. (This last bit of information of course comes from my googling exercise.)

The last time I was in the city late last year. I met my auntie Christina there. We had a hard time deciding where to meet, me coming from East London and her coming from West London. We had a fabulous lunch and I was very pleased that she had a good time herself discovering some place out of the ordinary and she could do a little post-lunch shopping in the area too.

In the Know:
5th View Bar & Food
203-206 Piccadilly, London W1J 9LE
Tel. +44 207 851 2433


I am hosting Weekend Herb Blogging for March 10-16. You can write about any herb, vegetable, or flower, and if you like, share a recipe with us. To participate, check out the rules and send me your entry by Sunday March 16. If you do not have a blog, send me an email to greenoliva (at) gmail (dot) com.