Toasted Belacan Granules

I had my whole place smell of the pungent belacan yesterday. 

My homemade belacan granules/powder supply was running low so I toasted 2 blocks of belacan to restock. Usually I will burn a candle next to my pan while toasting it. I ran out of candles and I thought by having 2 fans blowing the smell out of the window, the smell won't spread to the rest of the rooms. I thought wrong. :P

I wouldn't mind the smell, in fact I love it but my husband hates it.  Although I did clear most of the smell but for someone who hates it, it's not difficult to notice it the moment he step into the house.

Well, what has been toasted cannot be untoasted.

{ Breakfast: Creamy Ham & Cheese on Thick Toast }

I used to order a similar Toast from a certain Tea Room (茶餐厅).  I haven't have this for a long time as I find it too expensive.

I have already forgotten how it tasted like since it has been a few years since I had this.  Making my own version for breakfast today.

Ingredients:

• 2 slices Thick Bread
• 2 slices Ham
• 2 tablespoon Japanese Mayonnaise
• 1 1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire Sauce
• 2 tablespoon Mozzarella Cheese
• 1 tablespoon Parmesan Cheese
• Paprika
• Dried Parsley 

How to do it:

1. Dice ham and mix them with Worcestershire Sauce and Mayonnaise.
2. Spread the mixture on bread.
3. Top with both Cheese.
4. Sprinkle on Paprika and Dried Parsley.
5. Toast in preheated oven at 240c for 5 mins or till the cheese melts and starts to brown.
6. Serve immediately.

Homemade Breadcrumbs 自制面包糠

What do you usually do with the bread crust from the loaf of bread you buy? When you make sandwiches for your kids, do you throw away the bread trimmings? There is bound to be a lot of bread wastage if you are into making bento, right?

Next time, keep all of those to make breadcrumbs you can use for your cooking. No wastage. You can keep the breadcrumbs in air-tight container in the freezer for months.

I'm going to share how to do this using oven and pan over stove top.

For Oven Owners:

1. All all bread crust into strips.
2. Place all the bread crusts on a tray flat.Toast in a preheat oven at 120c for 15 mins till the bread crusts are dry. We do not want to brown them.
3. Place them in a blender and grind them into your desire texture.
4. If you do not have a blender, place them in a Ziploc bag and roll them with a rolling pin or similar object to crush them into bits.
5. When they are completely cooled, store them in air-tight container till you are ready to use.

For Non-Oven Owners:

1. Cut bread crust into strips.
2. Place all bread crusts into a blender and grind them into your desire texture. I do not recommend you grind them too finely because it turns brown easily when toasting on pan.
3. Heat a pan till hot then lower the heat.
4. Place all bread crumbs into the pan and toast them till they are dry. Keep stirring and tossing to avoid burning the crumbs.
5. When they are completely cooled, store them in air-tight container till you are ready to use.

Note:
You can do the same for stale bread too.

{ Egg in Toast } 土司蛋

Last month was examination month. Then we went for a short holiday when school closed for holidays. Hence the lack of post (I just realised that there isn't any post last month). That and the fact that I'm using my husband's (work) laptop now instead of our desktop. However, photos are all still being loaded in the desktop. Lots of work just to get a post out and I grew lazy to update :P

I will still try to not to be lazy and post more often :P  Here's a quick one for a start.

I'm sure many have try making this before. I used to do this on a frying pan but I didn't like the results. The bottom sometimes get burn and worst, the egg's not even cooked well on the top.

Quite sometime back I decided to do this using the oven instead and we all loved the results. The bread tasted better as you can spread it with butter or for my case, Garlic Spread. The egg is cooked just right and the best of all, the bottom of the bread is not burned either.

Try this if you have an oven. This is how I did it:

Ingredients:

• 1 slice Thick Bread
• 1 cold 60g Egg
• Butter or Garlic Spread

How to do it:

1. Use a cookie cutter to cut out a hole in the middle of the bread.
2. Spread butter or garlic spread on the top and the inside of the cut out hole.
3. Place on a piece of baking paper. I'm using Glad baking paper hence no greasing is required, You might have to grease light if you are using the normal baking paper.
4. Crack egg into the hole.
5. Toast in preheated oven at 200c for 3mins.
6. Reduce temperate to 180c and continue to toast for 4mins.
7. Remove from baking paper and serve.

Note:

• The first toasting using higher temperature is to set the egg a little so the bread at the bottom doesn't absorb too much of the egg.
• The second toasting using a lower temperature is to cook the egg further to desire doneness.
• Every oven work differently. If you find your bread getting too brown after the first toasting, you can shield the bread using a foil tent.
• Alternatively, you can lower the temperature and toast it longer.
• If you can't get thick bread, use regular thickness bread with a smaller egg. This is to prevent the egg from over-flowing from the hole.

Minestrone Soup with Garlic Toast 蒜茸土司配意大利杂菜

Minestrone is one of my favourite western soup. Usually I will add macaroni in it for my second meal and that makes a very filling meal. I'm using french loaf here to make the garlic toast as it will soften when it's dipped into the soup and it soak up the soup better then  bread or bun.

I have shared both the recipes for Minestrone and the Garlic Bread here before. For easy reference, I'm re-posting the recipes with minor tweaks for both recipes.


Minestrone Soup

Ingredients:

• 1.2 litre Chicken Broth
• 2-3 tablespoon Tomato Paste
• 1 stick Celery, diced
• 1 Potato, skinned and diced
• 1 Carrot, skinned and diced
• 1 Onion, skinned and diced
• 5 French Bean, diced
• 4-5 leaf Cabbage, chopped
• 2 teaspoon Dried Oregano
• 1 Bay Leaf
• Pepper and salt to taste

How to do it:

1. Heat a little oil and saute onion and celery till slightly soften.
2. Add in potato, carrot, french bean and cabbage.
3. Cook for a minute.
4. Add in the rest of the ingredients except for pepper and salt.
5. Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer.
6. Simmer for 30 to 45 minutes till vegetables are tender.
7. Season with salt and pepper.

Note:

• Size of the veggies used, ie, potato, carrot and onion, depends on your preference. If you not going to eat much of the veggies, get smaller size veggies.
• Add more tomato paste if you prefer the soup to be to be thicker.

Garlic Toast

Ingredients:

• French Loaf, sliced
• 4 tablespoon Butter, Soften
• 16 clove Garlic
• 1 teaspoon Garlic Powder (optional)
• 1 teaspoon Dried Parsley (optional)

How to do it:

1. Preheat oven at 180C.
2. Cut the base (hard part) of garlic, leave the skin on.
3. Toast slice french loft and garlic for 12 mins.
4. Remove and set aside to cool.
5. Squeeze the garlic out from the skin and smash into paste like.
6. Add the garlic to the rest of the ingredients and mix well.
7. Spread on toasted sliced french loaf.
8. Toast for 10 to 15 mins.

Note:

• Pre-toast the french loaf to make it dry so it will stay crunchy.
• Time required depends on how thick the slices are.
• Toast it again if you feel that it's still soft in the middle.
• Store un-used french loaf in air-tight container till stated expiry date.
• You can grate fresh garlic into paste like instead of toasting it if you like.
• You can also mix some Parmesan Cheese to the Garlic Mixture.

Cheesy Garlic Bread

My husband decided to go drinking with his pals today. *roll eyes* I get nagged for staying up late to blog but somebody can go drinking when that same somebody just worked past midnight yesterday and had to wake up early as usual to get to work this morning. *shrug* I'm not complaining.

At least I get to blog in peace. LOL. Okay, for this recipe, which is one of my kid's favourite, is really easy to do. It's is actually this recipe plus cheese. But because cheese is added here, I cut down the garlic to 2 clove garlic with 1 tablespoon butter.

For this particular one you see in the photo, 1 tablespoon of Mozzarella Cheese is added into the garlic spread. You can use any cheese you like. Sometimes I use Cheddar with Parmesan Cheese too. It's basically whatever leftover bits of Cheese I have. I have not tried Cream Cheese though.

What you do is to mix the soften butter, garlic, cheese and the optional parsley and garlic powder together. Use that to spread on your bread before you toast it. The bread I use here is hotdog bun. I like it that it's still a bit soft on the inside but cruchy on the thin outer crust. So it won't hurt the kids' gums when they eat it.

Another great idea for pinic. ;) Do remember to wrap the garlic bun/bread with a 2 to 3 pieces of kitchen towels before to wrap it with foil so it will not be too soggy later.

Salami/Ham and Cheese Toast

I have a Guest Chef today, WokkingBoy. LOL I know he would love to make tea for both of us, so I 'invited' him to do it. I became his assistant and prepared all the ingredients for him.

Ingredients:

• 2 slices of bread of your choice
• 3 slices of cheese of your choice, cut into 6 strips each
• Toppings of your choice (we had shaved Breakfast Ham and Salami)
• Parmesan Cheese

How to do it, in the Chef own words:

1. Wash your hands and dry them first.
2. Take a piece of bread and put on a plate.
3. Put 3 pieces of cheese (he meant the cut strips) over the bread.
4. Put the ham over the cheese; put A LOT. (we did ham first)
5. Put some more cheese. Must put nicely. Don't anyhow put. Won't be nice later.
6. Put the breads in the toaster and wait for a while.
7. See the cheese are all melted. (8 minutes, the assistant took note of the time)
8. Can take them out. Must wear glove - long ones.
9. Put some Parmesan Cheese.
10. Okay, can eat now but too hot for me.

Note:
The assistant cut the Salami in quarters and chopped the shaved ham in smaller pieces because it was a bit difficult to cut them nicely.

* Guest Chef, WokkingBoy, in action *