Saw this video from Savor Easy for a while now, but finally got around to trying it today. This bread uses sweetened condensed milk in the dough itself as well as in the glaze, and my oh my the bread is so soft and quite heavenly. If you have some glaze leftover, USE IT. Spread some more of it on the bread, or use it as a dip. OMG.
Read MoreI’ve made quite a few recipes by Emeril Lagasse which called for andouille sausages. I have never seen halal andouille in any of the upmarket grocers or deli stores in KL, and even when an ad for a non-halal deli pops up in my feed (need to do better, Facebook -_-) I rarely see andouille in their product list. So I usually would substitute with other sausages, such as chorizo (hard to find), Italian or any other smoked sausage.
At one point I wanted to try making my own andouille sausages. I’ve looked up a possible recipe from Emeril. Rudy even got me a gorgeous Zwilling Twin Smoker set. I was pretty new to cooking at the time, and was still very wary about taking liberties and modifying recipes, so my inability to find a substitute for file powder called for in the recipe basically ground the project to a halt. Almost seven years later, having more cooking experience and exposure to recipes from so many more chefs and home cooks, I finally got around to making my own andouille, based on this really inspiring recipe by Hank Shaw.
Read MoreWhen I was a kid, on weekends when we went to visit my brother in boarding school, we’d stop by a market in Batu Enam to buy Bengali bread rolls filled with kaya. The bread was simple, soft but not milky, and the kaya was the cheapo diluted type unlike the fancy gourmet ones we see which uses premium ingredients. But I remembered how warm and fragrant they were, freshly baked just in time for afternoon tea, and one roll was never enough.
The basic Benggali bread can be shaped into a plain sandwich loaf, or portioned into rolls with your preferred fillings. This was my tribute to the kaya rolls from my childhood, and gosh these were so darn good, despite the rather ugly shapes. I’m very happy with the flavor but still tweaking the rest times, so will be updating this recipe with new instructions and pictures from time to time.
Based on the recipe from Dari Dapur. Don’t forget the black coffee.
Read MoreBeen wanting to make my own sausages for ages. The recipes I like to try out, usually from Emeril Lagasse, often call for different kinds of sausages, (Spanish or Portuguese) chorizo, andouille, or Italian (both hot and sweet). Sweet Italian sausages are still relatively easier to find, but not so much for the rest. In fact, I’ve never seen halal andouille anywhere. Add to that my new-ish resolution to take better control of what goes into the food I feed my family, so I finally got around it today.
This is a recipe for Mexican chorizo, based on the recipe from Honest Cooking. It’s usually not stuffed into casings, but I really wanted to start building my sausage-making skills, so I decided to stuff ’em anyway.
Read MoreRecipes from the King Arthur Flour website often call for cheese powder and I got quite curious about it, so I bought some from the recent Lazada 8.8. sale. I bought extra to get Free Shipping, so I was very eager to start using up this new ingredient.
This Savory Cheese Bread recipe from King Arthur Flour website was originally written for a Zojirushi breadmaker, and I’ve rewritten it for use in my Kenwood BM450 breadmaker.
Read MoreI’m on quite a few Facebook groups related to breadmaking and breadmaker usage, and quite often I see folks posting their Wu Pao Chun bread. I was wondering what this was all about, and many times those posts didn’t come with the recipe.
One day Rudy shared with me the link to the recipe by The Domestic Goddess Wannabe, written specifically for the breadmaker. I adjusted the recipe to suit my Kenwood BM450, both for a 500 and 750g loaf.
Read MoreAnyone who has seen the movie Chef starring Jon Favreau would probably remember the scene with the absolutely decadent-looking grilled cheese sandwich. In the early days after watching the film, I practically fantasized about how gooey the cheese might be, and what the different cheeses might taste like.
At long last, after quite a few years, I stumbled upon the recipe for this amazing looking grilled cheese sandwich. My oh my did this match everything I ever dreamed of.
Read MoreNeeded some hearty bread to serve with my beef stew, and also wanted to make some grilled cheese sandwiches, so settled for this super basic Italian bread recipe, based on the recipe by Brooklyn Farm Girl.
Read MoreTo me, cooking is a way to destress after a long week slogging at the office. Making bread, however, is what I find most enjoyable. When a bread recipe appeared in Saudi Food Eman’s Facebook feed, I knew I had to try it ASAP. I mean, bread stuffed with cream cheese and drizzled with syrup? Sign me up!
Because I was adamant about using my breadmaker for this, I had to make a few adjustments to the recipe. I didn’t notice that the recipe uses a lot more yeast relative to the flour (which was really silly in retrospect, but ah well that’s how we learn), so after letting the Dough cycle run its full course, my dough literally looked like foam. While I managed to save the dough by adding more flour, the bread turned out heavy and had a strong yeasty taste. At this point, I still didn’t realize that the cause was my overproofing the dough. I instead blamed it on the plain flour I used, and switched to bread flour for my second attempt.
While the dough was a lot less wet this time around, and the bread was a lot fluffier, the yeasty flavor remained. Finally it dawned on me that I was using the same amount of yeast but a little more than half of the flour compared to my roti paung recipe. Since the whole point of using a ton of yeast is to cut down prep time, I must have been letting the dough sit for far too long. I then realized waiting for my normal breadmaker Dough cycle to fully finish isn’t suitable for this recipe, so I simply let the machine do just the kneading and took it out right after, without resting the dough. True enough, this dough rises so fast, the earlier rolls doubled in size by the time I finished working on the last few.
The results? Lovely rolls which were bite sized and fluffy, with no unpleasant yeasty taste. I also loved the amazing combination of exotic flavors and textures. Creamy cheese inside fluffy bread, topped with crunchy, herby black seeds (habbatus sauda) then drizzled with sweet syrup infused with the distinct flavor of saffron. I just couldn’t stop eating this.
Try it out!
Read MoreEver since Ramadan started, I’ve been taking my quick breaks walking through the aisles of Ben’s Independent Grocer (B.I.G.) almost every working day. Sometimes (very rarely) I leave empty handed, but most of the time I would buy some fruit at half price or bread or some ingredient I could use to make something small for buka puasa. So this time I bought a bag of panko breadcrumbs, and made another recipe from Chef Kamarul’s book.
These croquettes were lovely, and reminded me so much of the snack I love back in Japan. I noticed that mixing the ingredients using the potato masher wasn’t so effective for me, so next time I’ll switch to a spatula or wooden spoon instead. I’ll also stuff them with cheese or meat to make them more hearty.
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