Sunday, January 22, 2012

Cinnamon banana wraps

I was craving for something buttery and sweet today and I finally came up with these banana wraps. At first I was thinking of calling them "banana puff", but I decided to go with "wraps". They are very quick and easy to make, especially if you use store-bought or pre-made puff pastry. Honestly, I can`t see myself making my own pastry sheet. Not in a gazillion year.
Oh I really should finish this post quickly because I need to meditate before Monday comes. And by meditate, I mean not doing anything. I believe that`s what Sunday night is for.

So here`s how to make the wraps: 

Cut pre-made puff pastry into 8 triangles. 
I should feel embarrassed showing you my cutting ability, but this reminds me of how I should get a ruler for my kitchen. 

Brush the pastry with olive oil. 

Sprinkle over brown sugar and cinnamon.
If you want, you can do the cutting after this stage. About the amount of the sugar, I wanted the wraps to be just slightly sweet, so I only used like 1 tbs of it. If you`re a sweet tooth person, you might want to add more sugar.

Now, I don`t have the picture here, but you need to slice a banana into approximately 2-cm thick coins.

Wrapping time.
Take one pastry triangle, place a banana slice at the center, and fold in one pointy edge like in the picture.

Next, fold in the other two edges to the center to cover the whole banana. Done!

Or done-ish, because there is an optional step where you seal the wraps with egg wash (which I didn`t) and brush the surface too (which I did).
One thing I learned from here is not to overdo the brushing because the egg will drip to the bottom of the pastry and get burned during the baking.

Done! Now bake them in a preheated oven at 200 C for 15-20 min or until nicely puffed up and golden brown.

They`re puffy and buttery with sweet cinnamony banana filling inside. Just perfect for our freezing Sunday evening. I totally recommend you to have this with a cup of hot chai because it`ll make everything perfecter.
As I didn`t seal the wraps, they all puffed open and I can`t find proper words to describe their shapes, except "unknown random puffs". Good thing that I have the pictures, so you can define it your self. 

For those of you who wondered what that robot was doing there, this was a special request from my husband who wanted me to include his new pet robot toy in the picture. Well, I had nothing else in mind to style up the wraps anyway. I seriously need to improve my propping style.

Have a lovely Sunday!
CINNAMON BANANA WRAPS
Makes 8 wraps

Ingredients:
18 x 18-cm pre-made puff pastry
1 tbs olive oil
1-2 tbs brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 banana, sliced into coins
1 egg

Method:
1. Cut pre-made puff pastry into 8 triangles.
2. Brush the pastry with olive oil
3. Sprinkle over brown sugar and cinnamon
4. Slice banana into 2-cm thick coins
5. Take one triangle, place one slice of banana, and wrap by folding all three pointy edges of the pastry into the center.
6. Brush with egg wash.
7. Bake in preheated oven at 200 C for 15-20 min or until nicely puffed up and golden brown.

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Miso fried rice and a resolution

I know I`ve been MIAing for a while and that because for the whole last week, my mind was fully occupied with job-related things. I wanted to say that that`s a good thing with being busy, but sadly, it was not. My current job contract is about to end and a while ago, I applied for a job for the errrth time and I finally got myself an interview. The irony was, I wanted that job so much and I really felt that I had a good shot, but the second I finished my interview, I knew I blew it away just like that. That day, it seemed clearer than ever to me that my greatest weakness is being interviewed. So, I just went home feeling uneasy and regretting the way I responded to the questions. It`s all about "I should have explained this and that" in my mind. And despite my fear of the result, I still had the excitement thinking of a tiny possibility for me to get it until a letter came two days later saying that I don`t get the job. Then, I crashed down, pretty badly. I always knew that I`m more a writer than a speaker, but I never thought that it would cost me this bad. And to make things gloomier, my paper got rejected too earlier that day. But I quickly resubmitted it to a different journal in the same day and I`m glad I did. So, one rejection to start my day and another rejection to welcome me home. Now how about that?
Anyway, I`m glad to say that I`ve finished with the sad part, so let me continue with the good part. Or at least I think it`s good for me. I thought it would take days for me to get over it, but to my surprise, I was already fine the next day and even better, I`m ready to move on. It occurred to me that now I knew the root of my problem, I have to work on  my communication/speaking skill for interviews, or in a broader term, my self-selling skill in job hunting. Otherwise, I will spend the rest of my time just whining about why I fail again, or worse, blaming the universe.So here I am, with new battery, which I hope will last very long, and new homework to do. Failing should make me better instead of merely feeling defeated. And please remind me about all this speech when I start whining again, alright?

OK, now I`m done with sharing about my life. I don`t mean to drag you into my gloominess, but I hope the lesson works not only for me, but for people out there too who are probably in the same situation.


Now, please come to my kitchen because I`m going to share my quick and easy meal, which happens to be a vegan recipe too.  I just hope that this fried rice doesn`t represent my story above because really, they don`t relate at all. In fact, this post has helped me getting back on my feet before the Monday comes.
Cooking time!

Start with chopping a spring onion.

 
In a frying pan with a bit of oil, stir-fry the spring onion with chilli. 
You can remove the chilli seed before slice/chop it up for a milder heat. For me, I`ve never removed any chili seed in my life. Maybe having a baby would be my only reason to do that in the future.

Next, throw in sliced shiitake mushrooms. 

And toss in shimeji mushrooms.
Speaking of mushrooms, I remembered my recent conversation with my dearly cousin who lives in Netherland. She said that it`s difficult to copy my recipe because she rarely/never see the ingredients I use here at her place. I`m sure that she`s not alone in having this opinion because I too have some difficulties in finding some ingredients listed in recipes from outside Japan. But even so, I think the basic idea of sharing recipes, at least for me and especially for non-baking ones, is to inspire people to cook. And more importantly, with whatever we have or like. Other than that, don`t you think it`s fun to learn about new or foreign food we never see before?

Aaaand....back to the frying pan before I burn everything. 
Add a tbs (or more, or less) of miso paste and stir up.

Then, to give it a red effect, add 1 tbs of red chili powder or flakes.

Season with salt (go easy with it because miso is already salty), ginger, and pepper. Stir until everything combined.

Dump in cooked rice and good luck with the stirring.

This fried rice has a pretty good resemblance with Indonesian fried rice. Just add a fried egg on top and shrimp rice crackers on the side and no one will sue you from calling it Indonesian fried rice. Although, one will quickly notice a difference because of the dominant miso flavor in the dish. And before I forget, this dish is not only quick and easy to prepare, but also comforting.  After all, what`s not comforting from miso and mushrooms?
MISO FRIED RICE
Makes about 2 plates

Ingredients:
1 spring onion
2-3 chili
Shiitake mushrooms
Shimeji mushrooms
1 tbs miso paste
1 tbs chili powder/flakes
Ginger
Salt
Pepper
2 plates cooked rice
Tomato (optional)
Parsley (optional)

Method:
1. Saute chopped spring onion and chili in a frying pan with a bit of olive oil.
2. Stir in  shiitake mushrooms and cook until it wilted.
3. Stir in shimeji mushrooms and cook until it wilted.
4. Add 1 tbs of miso paste and 1 tbs of chili powder/flakes.
5. Season with ginger, salt, and pepper and stir up.
6. Add 2 plates of cooked rice and stir until everything combined.
7. Optional: garnish with chopped tomato and parsley to serve.

Monday, January 2, 2012

Pan-fried buns for a start in 2012

Happy New Year 2012, everyone! How was your New Year`s day there??
It`s already Jan 2 evening at our place, which also means the last day of my holiday. I have really enjoyed my time in the kitchen and in fact, I baked and cooked so much that he begged me to stop cooking for a while. It really sounded bizarre considering how often I usually ask him to buy store-bought food during our regular weekdays, or even sometimes on weekends. This holiday, however, I had (and am having) a sudden unstoppable obsession in bread making. Bread dough was one of my kitchen nightmares that I used to avoid the best I can. I remembered last year where I burst into tears when both my hands got trapped in a very sticky monstrous bread dough. The results were disasters too! I did stop trying making any kind of bread until I bought an old cooking magazine featuring pan-fried buns (Orange Page 2010, Vol 1). The buns look very similar with the regular steamed buns, only these ones got beautiful crusty side on the base.


My attempt in making the buns using the magazine`s recipe just worked and I hope by sharing this post I can encourage those who haven`t tried making steamed buns. This is going to be a very long post, but please don`t be put off by that because doing it is actually much less complicated than explaining it.


Alright, ready to scroll down your mouse?
Mix flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt in a bowl and stir in lukewarm water mixed with olive oil. 
From what I`ve experienced, I found that using a wooden spoon to mix the ingredients works best for me. A kneader is good too. But definitely not by hand. Not for me. Not at this stage.

After the mixture turns into a dough, knead it by hands, and shape into a ball and let rest for 30 mins or 1 hour. I was worried looking at how ugly it was, but it turned out to be alright later.

In the mean time, prepare the filling. You can use your favorite filling, but here I used chicken and mushrooms filling.

Saute chopped shiitake mushrooms and garlic (the garlic picture isn`t here, sorry!) with olive oil until they have wilted and released the nutty scent.

Stir in minced chicken and let cook through.

Throw in chopped garlic chives.
This is a very garlicky chickeny filling.

Add soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil, salt, and pepper. It`s better to oversalt the filling a little bit as it will go together with the plain buns.
After the filling is ready, set aside to let it cool.
Now here`s the dough ball that has been leavened. I flattened it pushing the air out and kneaded by hand for a couple more times. Look how smooth it is now!

Next is dough portioning.

1. Shape the dough into a log and cut crosswise into halves and cut the halves into another halves to get 4 equal portions. Then, half each cut and this will result in 8 equal portions. 
By equal, of course, I mean, humanely possible equal.
2. For the finishing knead, pull out the edge of each portion dough and tuck it in repeatedly while shaping into a ball shown in Picture 3 above.
4. With a rolling pin, roll out each ball into a disc. 
My dough was a little springy that the flattened disc kept springing back making the disc rather thick. But I just continued to the filling anyway.

Next is the filling.

1. Place the disc onto your palm and flatten it once more.
From what I`ve learned, it`s better to flatten the edges and leave the center a little thick. 
2. Place the filling onto the disc.
Try small first and when you get used to the wrapping, add more filling.  
3. Pleat the edge and seal them altogether. 
As you can see in the picture, I didn`t pleat it. I just sealed the edge and I was satisfied enough if the filling could be wrapped neatly. 
4. Twist the edge for final sealing while shaping into a round bun.
Go easy with the twisting. Once the bun is safely sealed, you`re good. I overdid the sealing and the center got stretched out too far making the surface too thin and the base too thick.

Heat a bit of oil on a frying pan over medium heat and place the filled buns. They will puff up, so space them apart.

After 1 minute frying the base, quickly, but carefully pour in 1/3 to 1/2 cup of water. 
There will be a serious oil splatter at the beginning, but if you add enough water, which covers like 1/4 or 1/3 of the bun, the splatter will be quickly gone and the water will simmer instead.

After adding the water, quickly cover the pan with a lid and let the water and steam cook the bun for 7-8 minutes.

After the buns have nicely puffed up, open the lid, crank up the heat, and let the water evaporate. Add sesame oil and swirl around to coat the bun base for final frying for another minute.
Done! 

Ready to devour?

Here, let me cut it open for you so you can see the inside. This is why I suggest you not to overdo the sealing. This must be the most weird-looking bun I`ve ever had.

I also made the regular steamed buns with the same dough. Tastewise, I love them both. Love, love, love. Cooking-processwise, the steaming method was simpler and quicker as I could cook more buns at once in my steamer and I didn`t need to do anything except waiting. Texturewise, the fried ones have wonderful textures with the irresistible heavenly crusts.

These crusts. Do I need to say more?
PAN-FRIED BUNS
Adapted from Orange Page 2010, Vol 1
Makes 8 buns

Ingredients:
For filling
5 cloves of garlic
150 g minced chicken
100 g shiitake mushrooms
Garlic chives
2 tbs soy sauce
1 tbs sesame oil
Salt 
Pepper

For buns
200 g bread flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2  tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tbs olive oil
100 ml lukewarm water

Methods:
For the filling
1. Saute chopped shiitake mushrooms and garlic with olive oil until they has shrinked and released the nutty scent.
2. Stir in minced chicken and let cook through.
3. Throw in chopped garlic chives.
4. Add soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil, salt, and pepper. 
5. Let it cool down. 

For the buns
1. Mix flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt in a bowl and stir in lukewarm water mixed with olive oil. 
2. After the mixture turns into a dough, knead it by hands, and shape into a ball and let rest for 30 mins or 1 hour. 
3. Flatten the leavened dough to push the air out and knead by hands for a couple more times.
4. Shape the dough into a log and cut crosswise into halves and cut the halves into another halves to get 4 equal portions. Then, half each cut and this will result in 8 equal portions. 
5. For the finishing knead, pull out the edge of each portion dough and tuck it in repeatedly while shaping into a ball 
6. With a rolling pin, roll out each ball into a disc. 

For filling and frying
1. Place the disc onto your palm and flatten it once more.
2. Place the filling onto the disc.
3. Pleat the edge and seal them altogether. 
4. Twist the edge for final sealing while shaping into a round bun. 
5. Heat a bit of oil on a frying pan over medium heat and place the buns. They will puff up, so space them apart.
6. After 1 minute frying the base, quickly, but carefully pour in 1/3 to 1/2 cup of water. 
7. Quickly cover the pan with a lid and let the water and steam cook the bun for 7-8 minutes. 
8. After the buns have nicely puffed up, open the lid, crank up the heat, and let the water evaporate. Add sesame oil and swirl around to coat the bun base for final frying for another minute.