French Laundry Lemon Tart

My favorite lemon tart recipe is this one from Epicurious.com: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Lemon-Tart-231349. I have made it many times now and can attest it is smackelicious! Making the sabayon may seem intimidating but it is really easy, just takes some patience (and faith) waiting for it to thickened up. I highly recommend some berries on top (blueberries are best, raspberries are good too) and and oh, a side of homemade whipped cream won't be awful either. Bon Appétit!

Chicken Bao

Image from Amazon.com (source)

In our recent travel to Hong Kong we had the rare opportunity to try halal Hong Kong Dim Sum in Masjid Ammar. I was smitten..... I suddenly had the urge to master all the popular Dim Sum selection I could lay my hands on, like Chicken Bun, Har Gao, Tofu sheet dim sum, glutinous rice in lotus leaves, different kinds of shiu mai.... Upon arriving back to CA, I razed our local library and found several books on dim sum, and after several tests, my favorite one is Eileen Yin-Fei Lo's. I had the mistake of doubting her bao recipe to my detriment.

My obsession with chicken bao led me to try several recipes for the bun, including one from Yin-Fei Lo's and another from Rasa Malaysia blog. I decided I prefer the Cantonese style by Yin-Fei Lo's that relies only on baking powder to rise the dough than the other style that requires some yeast. The Cantonese style resulted in very soft, cake-like bun, while the other turned more chewy. And they say one of the secret of soft bao is to use a mixture of all purpose and cake flour.

Here's my bao

Here's my bao, too

and here is my Har Gao

Sweet potato cupcakes

Sweet potato cupcakes on Boxing Day!  A new tradition?  Perhaps.  Craving cupcakes and sweet potato, I searched the internet for recipes and chose bakerella's "Not your kid's cupcake" recipe, prepared without the bourbon. 

I halved the recipe which yielded nine medium-sized cupcakes.  Also, I used canned sweet potato puree (organic) instead of whole potatoes.  I used 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon of ginger, and about 1/4 teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg as I did not have pumpkin spice.  I topped them with a frosting of equal parts cream cheese (2 oz) and butter sweetened with about a 1/4 teaspoon of brown sugar.  No pretty pictures to share with you, sorry, but the cupcakes are delicious!

Pumpkin bread pudding

In the spirit of Christmas I made this pumpkin bread pudding. I used croissants as the base making it super rich--I did omit the melted butter that was in the recipes that inspired this dish and used evaporated milk instead of cream.

Recipe (I kinda made my own combining several of the recipes I read online--including from Smitten Kitchen and Epicurious).
8 cups croissants cubes (if you use a less rich bread, like italian or white bread, you may want to toss in some melted butter over the bread)
1 can pumpkin puree
1 can evaporated milk + 1/4 cup milk
3/4 cup brown sugar (loosely packed)
1/4 cup maple syrup
1tsp cinnamon powder
1.5tsp ginger powder
1/8 tsp nutmeg powder
1/8 tsp allspice
3 medium sized eggs

Mix all of the above and pour over bread cubes. Leave for 15 minutes and pour into a buttered baking dish. Bake about 40 minutes in 180 C oven or until puffy and golden brown. Enjoy warm with some vanilla ice cream. Please do have it with the ice cream--it makes a great combination!

Happy holidays!

One of my favorite oolongs

I have been cooking, most recently Madhur Jaffrey's Potatoes with Yoghurt and Chickpeas, Delhi style, but I do not have photos to share.  I would like to share a photo of one my new favorite oolongs -- from In Pursuit of Tea -- which I tasted at a Tea & Cheese Pairing (yumminess x 2).

Ina Garten's Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting

Made these cupcakes twice and I can vouch for their yumminess, in particular, the peanut butter frosting. Do let the cupcakes set in the fridge for at least 15 minutes as the frosting is better cool (important if you live in the tropics). The ones in the picture above I made a few months ago. Looking at those cupcakes makes me want to make them again, now!

Here is the link to Ina's recipe (love her!) : http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/chocolate-cupcakes-and-peanut-butter-icing-recipe/index.html

I am contemplating next time I make them, I may try to use Nigella's moist chocolate cake recipe but keep to Ina's peanut butter frosting. Will post when I do (though I think it will be awhile before I have time to bake them).

Olives and grapes pizza

A week-day pizza utilizing leftovers I had hiding in the fridge-- kalamata olives, cherry tomatoes, pumpkin seeds and grapes! It was a yummy combination.