To all you readers on Facebook – Did you know that the Kitchen Wench blog now has a Facebook group? I tend to be much more active on Facebook than on the blog itself, so please join me as well as other readers to mingle and talk food
You can also declare yourself a Kitchen Wench Blog fan here
I adore banana, I really do…but I have a problem with the texture. That claggy, glaggy throat-clogging texture drives me to distraction in a very bad way, and I find that I just can’t tolerate the fruit in its natural state. However, that certainly doesn’t stop me from enjoying it in any other way possible, which may explain why I am always on the lookout for new recipes to try this fruit in!
When my kid sister bought me this cookbook, I was immediately smitten with this recipe…though why I didn’t try it sooner is beyond me! It’s a very dense and heavy loaf cake, but has an inexplicably moist and delicate crumb that melts on the tongue and keeps you coming back for more.
Banana & Date Bread
(from Donna Hay Simple Essentials – Fruit)
Ingredients
125g unsalted butter, softened & cut into cubes
175g brown sugar
2 large eggs, lightly beaten together
200g all-purpose flour (recipe originally called for 225g)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarb soda (also known as baking soda)
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1 1/2 cups mashed banana (make sure it’s well mashed)
1/4 cup pure maple syrup (not that horrid maple-flavoured syrup nonsense)
1 cup roughly chopped dried dates
1. Preheat the oven to 160 degrees C, lightly grease a small loaf tin and line with non-stick baking paper. Place the butter &sugar in a bowl and beat till pale and creamy. Gradually add the egg while beating, then beat to combine.
2. Sift together the flour, bicarb soda, baking powder, nutmeg and cinnamon twice to ensure the leaveners are not clumped together.
3. Add the chopped dates to the flour and stir well to ensure they’re well coated with flour (this prevents them from sinking to the bottom during baking)
4. Stir the sifted flour & dates into the creamed butter & eggs mixture.
5. Pour the maple syrup into the mashed bananas and mix, then add the bananas to the rest of the batter and lightly mix together (do not overwork as this will make the cake tougher, and you want a nice tender crumb for this cake)
6. Spoon into the lined loaf tin and bake for 70 minutes, or till a skewer inserted into the middle of the loaf comes out clean.
Allow this loaf to cool completely before slicing as it has a very moist & delicate crumb, and if you attempt to slice it before it is cool, the sodding thing will fall apart! However, once it is cooled, slices do taste best when slightly warmed…though temperature won’t matter much when you give this a taste!
Even though I’ve dropped the amount of sugar in this recipe, it’s still quite a sweet treat so I highly recommend making a pot of unsweetened tea to accompany it.
Apologies for taking so long since my last update…I’m a bit bulldozed by things happening in my life at present and blogging has taken quite a back seat. However, hopefully things will begin to settle down soon
Technorati Tags: banana, dates, bread, cake, baking, recipes
Okay, so this guide is more than a few weeks late…and really isn’t the best I could’ve done considering that I put it together out of sheer boredom while in the throes of a head cold…but hopefully some of you out there will find it handy!
When it comes to fondant, I’m hardly an expert. I’ve only dabbled with it a teensy bit, and have had to mostly rely on my experience with Play-Dough as a kid to figure out how to make these. Which really brings me to a point – if you haven’t tried playing with fondant, you should! It’s a legitimate reason to make cute, crazy and whacky figurines – which can be used to decorate cakes or cupcakes, and are entirely edible!
Now, since this guide will show you a step-by-step of how to make all five figures above (bear, puppy, pig, bee and giraffe), it’s quite long so I’m going to put it behind a cut. If you read through it and have any questions, just send me an email and I’ll do what I can to help!
Onwards to the guides!
First of all, the things in my fondant play kit:
1. A decent little knife for cutting fondant
2. Fondant/clay modelling tools (the fondant ones work better, but the clay tools work almost as well and cost a fraction of the price!)
3. Clean, small-tipped paint brushes
4. Colouring pastes and gels (avoid working water watery dyes as they will give you GRIEF)
5. A small rolling pin for rolling the fondant
6. Fondant stamp-cutters
7. Wilton grass icing bag tip (it’s what I used to make the grass in this picture)
8. Frangipani petal cutters – I have these in a range of sizes and use the smallest to cut mouths and bee wings
9. Vegetable shortening – if your fondant becomes too hard or dry, working a little vegetable shortening helps it to become soft and pliable again
10. Tylo ‘glue’ – an edible glue I purchase at my cake supplies store, which is marvellous for sticking fondant pieces together. If you can’t get access to any, you can use natural vanilla extract in a bind (do not, however, use water as I find it doesn’t really wor and just gives you sticky fondant)
11. Gum Tragacanth – a very fine powder which can be kneaded into fondant to thicken it and make it more stable and pliable to work with. Not necessary, but I find that fondant is much easier to handle when I add a little of this in. The down side is that it dries the fondant faster than normal, which means you do need to work quicker and that mistakes are not as easily rectified.
12. Icing sugar or corn starch – the natural heat from your hands will make the fondant sticky, so having this on hand to dust your working surface and your hands will help make the whole task more manageable!
13. Fondant! Whether self-made or store-bought, it’s up to you! I don’t have a mixer strong enough to mix it up, so I buy blocks of premade from my baking supplies store which suits me just fine
In this picture, we have:
While I was born in South Korea, my family immigrated to Australia when I was just 4 years old, therefore I never really had a chance to spend much time with my extended family – especially my mother’s parents, whom I’ve always loved and yearned for more time with.
We did go back to Korea for a few years, and that gave me a chance to spend a bit more time with my maternal grandmother which helped me to understand more about the role that food played in our culture, as well as where my mother had picked up her flavour instincts from! Sadly, nanna was taken from us unexpectedly while we were living there, so the only way that I can find out more about her now is through the stories and recipes that my mother shares.
This is one of them. My mother says this is utterly unaltered from the way that nanna made this all her life, and so when I make this recipe, I sometimes like to imagine her busy hands in the place of my own, and wonder whether she would approve of the way that her granddaughter was making this dish
I’m posting this recipe in reply to a special request by Stephanie at Dispensing Happiness, who wanted it to introduce her son to Korean food. I hope he and the rest of your family enjoy it
Korean Braised Potatoes
Ingredients
2 large potatoes (or 3 medium)
3-4 cloves garlic
1 – 1 1/2 tsp gochugaru (finely-ground Korean chilli powder)
3 tbsp Korean or Japanese dark soy sauce (not Chinese – it has a completely different flavour)
1 tbsp white sugar
2 tbsp malt syrup
1/2 cup water
A pinch of salt
Toasted sesame seeds, to garnish
1. Peel the potatoes, then cut in half lengthways. Take one half of the potato, cut it lengthways again, then turn and cut into fairly evenly-sized pieces (to ensure relatively even cooking). Repeat with the remaining potatoes.
2. Rinse the chopped potato in a bowl of water, then either steam/boil/microwave until the potato is half cooked. This is definitely not a traditional step, but using this shortcut will cut your cooking time in half!
3. Meanwhile, take 3-4 garlic cloves and use your kitchen knife to finely mince them.
4. Once the potatoes are half-cooked, drain them and sit them to cool for about 5 minutes. While they are cooling, mix together the soy sauce, gochugaru (Korean chilli powder), garlic and sugar.
5. Heat a large pot or work with a little olive oil over a very low heat, then slowly sautee the potatoes with a pinch of salt until they can be poked through with a fork without them breaking in half.
6. Once the potatoes have reached this stage, pour over the soy sauce mixture and stir to coat.
7. Add the malt syrup to the water and stir to mix, then add it to the pot and stir well to combine.
8. Put the lid on and allow to slowly cook, making sure to give it a stir occasionally so that the sauce evenly coats the potatoes, and that they do not stick to the pan. You will notice that the longer you braise them, the more the sauce will reduce and the darker it will become.
If the sauce disappears entirely before the potatoes are cooked, add a little more water to the pot and stir it through and keep cooking. You do not want these potatoes to be overcooked – just cooked enough so they hold their shape and are soft to bite all the way through with no crunchiness.
9. DO NOT SERVE THIS DISH HOT! Instead, allow this to cool at least to room temperature (as this is when the flavours will shine most), then plate up and garnish very simply with a pinch of toasted sesame seeds.
Technorati Tags: Korean recipes, spicy, savoury, potatoes, vegetarian, side dish
Others who have tried this recipe:
- Stephanie @ Dispensing Happiness
Move over, Colonel and KFC. Your days are through.
Why?
Because Korean deep-fried chicken is taking your place!
Whilst not a ‘traditional’ dish (in that the history of the dish comes from the influence of the US in Sth Korea rather than from hundreds of years and generations of perfection), this is still a food that has been around in the country for certainly almost as long as I’ve been alive, and as such, every family has their own unique twist to how they make it.
This is a recipe that my mother somehow put together and has worked on during my lifetime – the flavours in the dish have morphed so slowly that I can’t really remember what it tasted like the first time I made it. However, the current method we use is just so popular with friends and family that I’m fairly sure my mother is happy enough to now leave it be!
But then again, this *is* my mother we’re talking about…
Anyway, on to the recipe!
Our ‘Secret’ Recipe – Korean spicy deep-fried chicken
Chicken Marinade Ingredients
3kg chicken wings
1 cup milk (can substitute with soy milk if lactose intolerant)
2 tsp salt
3 tsp ground pepper
2 tbsp white sugar
1/2 tsp ground ginger
5 cloves garlic
1/2 finely grated brown onion
Chicken Coating Ingredients
3 tbsp Korean curry powder (Ottugi Korean curry powder is the one we use, I’ve tried other curry powders but it just doesn’t taste right)
1/2 cup potato starch
1 1/2 cup tempura flour
Tempura flour is a pre-mixed low-gluten flour that contains some seasonings and leavenings (the brand I use contains baking powder). You should be able to purchase this at any Chinese/Japanese/Korean grocery store. If you can’t find it, then substitute it with 1 cup all-purpose flour and 1/2 cup corn starch, sifted together twice.
As far as Korean curry powder, I’ve only seen it stocked online or at Korean grocery stores – though your local Asian grocer might have it on the shelves if you’re lucky.
Sweet & Spicy Sauce Ingredients
1/2 onion, finely diced
1/3 cup tomato sauce (Western-style, not the Asian ones which taste completely different)
1/2 cup sweet chilli sauce
1 tbsp Worcestershire/Worcester Sauce
1/2 cup water
2 tsp dried chilli flakes
Important Cooking Notes:
The process to make this dish is rather long, but it important that you do not miss any of the steps as this will alter the final outcome. The difference between this dish and Western-style deep fried chicken is that it is twice-fried to give it an exterior that stays crisp and crunchy despite being left overnight in a thick, spicy sauce! Our family also prefers using a dry coating to any sort of batter, as this gives an extremely thin end coating and doesn’t compete with the flavourings of the chicken and the sauce.
Also, in case you are tempted to use larger portions of chicken – don’t. The small and fairly uniform size of chicken wings is what allows for fast and even cooking. There’s no rule that says you can’t use other cuts, but in that case, I take no responsibility for whatever happens to your cooking times and the potentially dry and/or undercooked meat you will have in the end.
The utensils you will need for this dish are:
- deep-fryer (we use a wok which we use just for deep-frying)
- wire cooking net (found in Chinese grocery stores and excellent for deep-frying) or a slotted spoon
- a large, flat, metal strainer (found in Korean grocery stores), or a few large metal colanders lined with kitchen towels
- mixing bowls
- chefs knife, meat cleaver and chopping boards
- a large, clean plastic bag
- garlic press
- grater
- Measuring spoons & cups
1. The first thing that you need to do is prepare the chicken. Of course, if you buy pre-cut and prepared chicken wings then you’re fine, but I prefer to cut and trim them myself…just because 
A chicken wing has three sections – the ‘drumette’, the mid-wing and the wing tip. Use your meat cleaver to cut through each joint so that each wing is cut into three pieces.
2. Once your wing has been split into three pieces, cut off any thick chunks of skin from the wingette and mid-wing (there is usually 2-3 bits that can come off, you want the remaning skin to be just paper thin segments). Discard the removed skin and wing tips as they will not be used.
3. Cut three slits into each side of the drumette and mid-wing section – this will allow the pre-frying marinade to get right into the meat to keep it moist and impart a little flavour. Once you’ve prepared all the chicken wings, set aside for now.
4. Mix up the marinade in a large bowl – milk, salt, pepper, sugar, ginger, garlic and onion. Stir to combine.
5. Add the chicken and turn a few times with your hands to ensure that the chicken is evenly covered. Allow to sit for 1 hour, then drain well for at least 15 minutes.
6. Toss together the potato starch, Korean curry powder and the tempura powder in the clean plastic bag, then add the chicken and toss it around to ensure it is evenly coated.
Preheat the oil to approx 160 degrees C. Dust off any excess flour from each chicken piece, then add a few pieces to the hot oil (being careful not to overcrowd as this will make the temperature of the oil drop and affect the cooking process). Cook the chicken for about 5 minutes on each side to ensure even cooking.
7. Once the chicken has been deep-fried for about 10 minutes and is very lightly golden, use the slotted spoon to remove from the oil and place in your metal strainer/colander to cool. Try and keep the chicken pieces in a single layer – this avoids oil dripping from piece to piece during the cooling process, and also allows steam to escape so that the chicken coating stays crisp. Allow the chicken to sit and drain for about 10 minutes.
8. Increase the temperature of the oil to 180 degrees C, and fry the chicken for a second time for another 8-10 minutes, or until each piece is golden brown in colour (the picture below and to the right shows the colour difference between the first fry and second fry).
Once all the chicken pieces have been deep-fried for a second time, set aside on your metal strainer/colander.
9. While the chicken is resting, finely dice 1 1/2 onions and saute in a a frying pan with a little olive oil.
10. Once the onion is soft, add the ketchup (tomato sauce), sweet chilli sauce, water, Worcestershire/Worcester Sauce and chilli flakes. NOTE – add chilli flakes according to taste. If you’re a wuss when it comes to things hot & spicy, then you should reduce the amount to 1 tsp. If you love your chilli, you could even bump this up to 3 tsp (no more though, as this is a very strong sauce as it is). Allow the sauce to simmer until slightly thickened.
11. Once the sauce is ready, add a few chicken pieces at a time to the sauce and give them just a very thin coating of sauce – if there is too much, then it will overpower all the other flavours in the dish.
Plate up and enjoy with rice, banchan, and lots of pickles (which will be a post all of their own!)
As far as garnishes are concerned, you should stick with finely sliced spring onion or toasted sesame seeds…but it’s really not necessary, as once people catch a whiff of the amazing smell of this dish, I doubt you’ll have time to garnish before they start digging in!
As for those leftover wing tips? Well, why not give them to your friendly neighbourhood dog? I know Mr Woofy certainly wouldn’t say more to a few more such morsels
Technorati Tags: chicken wings, spicy, deep fried, Korean recipe, brothers, golden retrievers
Sorry folks, haven’t had time to put together the bee tutorial yet – but here’s my adaptation of Magnolia Bakery’s red velvet cupcake recipe! It is very fiddly, as far as cupcake recipes go, but the end results give a cupcake that is unbelievably light, fluffy and moist – so it’s a winner for me!
Red Velvet Cupcakes
(adapted from ‘More from Magnolia‘ red velvet cake recipe)
Ingredients
520g plain cake flour (NOT self-raising), sifted twice
170g unsalted butter, softened
500g caster sugar
3 large eggs, at room temperature
4 tsp red food colouring gel
5 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1 1/2 tsp cider vinegar
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
Frosting ingredients
400g block cream cheese (not the stuff in tubs), softened and cut into small pieces
80g unsalted butter, softened and cut into small pieces
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp lemon zest
5 cups sifted icing powder
HANDY TIP 1: I find that most frostings are FAR too sweet for my liking, so I actually like to replace my icing sugar with icing powder instead. The reason for this is because icing powder is a mixture of icing sugar & corn starch, and the latter helps to provide bulk and thicken the frosting without as much sweetness as using pure icing sugar would.
HANDY TIP 2: Try and hunt down some good quality food colouring pastes or gels. Wiltons are superb and the colours are so strong that you only need a small amount to dye cupcake batter. The red I use for these cupcakes is the Americolor vibrant red and, as you can see, it worked very well. The reason you should use a gel or paste rather than plain water dye is because it gives more intense colour and adds far less liquid to your batter which can affect the texture and flavour.
1. Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C and prepare your cupcake liners – you will need to spoon out ALL the batter as soon as its complete, rather than just doing it after the first batch have baked. Weigh out your butter and sugar and beat together till the butter is light and creamy in colour and texture.
2. Add the eggs, one at a time. Beat well after each addition, till the batter is very light and fluffy.
3. Measure out the cocoa powder, vanilla extract and red food colouring gel, then mix together and add to the batter (this is to try and reduce the amount of cocoa powder that will become airborne). Add this to cupcake batter and beat till well mixed in and the batter has turned a lovely deep salmon colour. Add more food colouring gel at this stage if necessary – but bear in mind the batter will become a bit darker once baked.
4. Stir the salt into the buttermilk, then add it to the batter in three batches, alternating with the sifted cake flour. Make sure you do not overbeat as this will result in dry, tough cupcakes.
5. At this stage you should have a thick but still slightly fluid batter that holds soft peaks. Mix together the baking soda (aka bicarb soda) and the vinegar, then add to the batter, mixing it in quickly and lightly.
Be careful. If you undermix then you’ll end up with big air pockets in your cupcakes, but overbeating will mean denser cupcakes and not the light fluffy ones you’re meant to have.
6. As soon as the baking soda/vinegar mix is incorporated into the batter, you need to start dividing it between cupcake liners.
The reason for this is that as soon as the baking soda/vinegar mixture meets the rest of the cake batter, it begins chemical reactions which result in aerating the batter. The longer it sits and the more the cake batter is disturbed, the more air you will lose from your batter.
7. Bake the cupcakes for about 20 minutes each, or till a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the cupcakes.
Make up the frosting: Beat together the cream cheese, butter, vanilla extract and lemon zest till light and creamy. Slowly add the icing powder, 1 cup at a time and beating for about 5 minutes between each addition. REFRIGERATE the frosting for about 1 hour before using – this allows the frosting to thicken up enough so it can be piped without losing shape.
Once the cupcakes are baked, allow to cool completely on a wire rack, then ice with the rested cream cheese frosting. For another special touch, you could add some pastel sprinkles and a fondant heart!
Sorry there’s no fondant bee guide this week, folks, but I’ve been flat out! I’ll try for this time next week What have I been doing? Well, working, baking and taking photos of my gorgeous friends:
Technorati Tags: Magnolia Bakery, baking, cupcakes, red velvet cupcakes, recipe
