Simple Pancakes for One

Makes about 3 pancakes

100g flour
200ml milk
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt

Whisk vigorously to remove lumps
Ladle into pan and pretend its a fat crepe
Just turn it before it burrrrns

Quite eggy if you ask me.

Rabies

Slice up half an onion.
Throw the onion in the pan with a little vegetable oil until brown.
Take a large handful of green leafy vegetables and throw it in with the onion.
Add a tiny pinch of salt (for taste).
When vegetable is cooked (ie not totally raw) take it out and put it in a bowl.
Next take a carton of SOFT TOFU (silken tofu).
Drain it and cut it up into squares.
Throw all the cubes into the pan.
Next put 1 tbsp of dark soy sauce, 1/2 tbsp of light soy, and 1/2 teaspoon of brown sugar over the tofu blobs.
Fry until its kinda really fried and the tofu has permanently become brown.
LAST OF ALL
CRACK ONE EGG OVER ALL OF THIS
Put a pot lid over the pan for a minute.
After than, transfer the tofu+egg over the bed of vegetables.
DONE!

Bell Pepper Soup Spaghetto

We are taking our food to the next level. We are starting our experiments with agar and alginates (spherification). We received various strange white powders in the post and combined it with a syringe and tubing kit brought from Singapore. The first thing we made was Bell Pepper Soup Agar Spaghetto.



We roughly cut 3 bell peppers, a few cloves of garlic, some onions, and a liberal sprinkle of paprika, and fried them until they caramelised. We fried it hard. Then we added water and one vegetable stock cube and put it into a pot. We continued to simmer this for half an hour.



Then we blended it. Here is the sous chef assisting with the blending process. We blended it in batches because we were blending boiling hot ingredients. A cloth held on top of the lid helped prevent accidents. At this point we already had an awesome soup. We ate a bowl of it and agreed that it was already awesome. We could have called it a day at that point; we could simply eaten all the soup, but we had much bigger ambitions for our soup.


Next, we mixed 300g of soup with 6.4g of plain white Agar Agar powder. This was based on a random unattributable calculation I had found on the internet stating that 150g of liquid should be mixed with 3.2g of Agar to jellify the liquid. Actually I can't recall where I read it or why I thought it was accurate. Anyway. It sounded like a plan. We loaded up the syringe and tubing with agar soup, doused the tube in a wok of cold water for 2 minutes, and then tried extruding it.

But hold on. Let me explain something here before we go further. When we started cooking, I had envisioned making a beautiful, smooth red pepper soup and a bright red spaghetto. But when I opened the fridge I realised that the sous chef had purchased Assorted Peppers instead of Red Peppers, so half the bell peppers we had were green. No big problem, so we made a slightly brown coloured soup instead then. Yeah, the brown, it would be a completely acceptable colour for a soup, why would anyone say otherwise?



Photo by georgepooney
Okay, but maybe it did remind us of something else in the end. Especially when our first attempts were slightly watery and admittedly extruded with a bit too much flatulence. We did not have a cheesecloth with which to strain the soup of its larger fibrous material, and this material was probably was interfering with its ability to gel uniformly. So I adjusted the amount of agar to 10g and reheated the soup before attempting the extrusion process. For your information, Agar turns solid at around 35°C and returns to a liquid form at 85°C.



Photo by georgepooney
This time the extruded Spaghetto looked acceptable. After we wiped the tears away from crying-laughing at our initial flatulent extrusions, and after we coiled our one single painstakingly-made Spaghetto into a shapely form, we settled down to eat our soup, now in jelly spaghetto format. We would be lying if we said it went down smoothly, because jellied soup does take some getting used, but the point of this entire endeavour was, of course, to make challenging food and that would run contrary to the ordinary notions of how food ought to be prepared and served, and this we had accomplished.

Vegetable Tofu Soup

1 shallot, sliced thinly
A fistful of diced spring onions
Two handfuls of fresh spinach
1 birds eye chilli, deseeded and sliced thinly
1 tube of Silken Tofu
Half a dozen cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
2 vegetable cubes
2 eggs, beaten together with 1 tsp of soy sauce
900ml water
A bit of Coriander, Paprika, Cayenne Pepper, and Soy sauce to taste

Heat some vegetable oil in your pot. Fry everything except the tofu (starting with the shallots, and then add the rest progressively) in the oil for a few minutes until it starts to brown and reduce into a kind of mush. Pour in the water and allow to simmer as long as you can humanly wait. Start stirring as you pour in the egg and stop abruptly once the entire egg mixture is in the pot and wait for half a minute while the egg sets into strands. Slide the tofu in and bring to a boil.

THERE, TOFU SOUP FROM SCRATCH.

All manners of variations can be made on this recipe. Just start it off with some shallots, and a vegetable cube for every 400-450ml of water, and throw in any other vegetables and spices you have to go with the tofu. Egg is a bonus.

Mushroom-Spinach Pesto Pizza with No Knead No Yeast Dough

We were going to make a real pizza but I decided to go with a "No Knead No Yeast" dough recipe. G forgot to get tomato sauce as well so we had to use Pesto instead. NEVER UNDERESTIMATE HOW A FEW CHOPPED CHERRY TOMATOES WILL GIVE THE ILLUSION OF PIZZA-NESS!

No Knead / No Yeast "Pizza" Dough Mix

1 3/4 cups self-raising flour
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
1/4 cup olive oil
2/3 cup boiling water

Pizza Topping

A few tablespoons of Green Pesto
A few handfuls of Mozzarella Cheese
Two handfuls of fresh spinach
1/2 cup of chopped mushrooms
1/2 punnet of Cherry Tomatoes
Italian Seasoning

Make the dough by first mixing the dry ingredients, make a little well in the centre of the bowl and then add the water and olive oil. Stir with a large spoon until it forms a kind of dough. Allow to rest for a little while before rolling out or smushing it out thinly onto a (preferably) greased pan to form a very thin biscuit base for the pizza.



Layer on the pesto, cheese, and whatever else toppings you intend to put on top. Bake in an oven of about 180 deg for about 10-15 minutes or just periodically check once in a while to see what state it is in. By the time you're done it should look like a pizza.



IS IT NOT LIKE A PIZZA?

Kimchi Omelette

4 eggs
3 teaspoons soy sauce (less than a teaspoon per egg)
Kimchi sliced into small pieces
A Fistful of diced spring onions
1 Shallot sliced thinly

Mix all of the above into an omelette mix. Heat a pan with sufficient vegetable oil until really hot. Fry the shallots until almost golden and then remove just the shallots (not the oil) and add into the omelette mix. Heat up the shallot oil again and pour in over high heat (so that it will crisp a little) and allow it to cook until the top is also starting to look like its cooled, it should be well browned on the other side, that'll be the time to flip. Allow to cook for about a minute or more on the other side (not too long so it won't be too dry) then take off the fire and quickly serve. Garnish with salad and coriander.

Kimchi Pancake

Kimchi Pancake Mix

Shallots
Mushrooms
Spring Onion
90 grams kimchi
60 ml water
60 ml milk
3 tablespoon of liquid from kimchi
150 grams self-raising flour
1 egg

Dipping Sauce

2 tablespoon light soy
1 tablespoon dark soy
1/2 teaspoon sugar
A dash of sesame oil


Cut up any amount of shallots and mushrooms or any other additional vegetables you would like to incorporate into the pancake. Pan-fry them so they are roughly cooked, then take them out of the pan and add them to a large bowl.

In this large bowl, combine all the other ingredients - flour, eggs, milk, kimchi, kimchi liquid, and freshly cut green spring onions. Stir to make a kind of soupy pancake mix. Ladle out with a big spoon into a frying pan with oil that has been well-heated to a high temperature. Fry in pan at high heat and sufficient oil to make small crisp pancakes. Finally, drain on paper towels to remove excess oil and retain its crispness cos we so fancy that we actually stock up on loads of paper towels in the kitchen now. Garnish with coriander, extra spring onions, and serve with sauce.

Onion Quiche

How to make an Onion Quiche

Shortbread pastry dough crust for Quiche

1 1/2 cup self-rising flour
1 stick butter
a little cold water to make it all stick together (approximately 5 tablespoons)

First, resist the urge to go out and buy some instant pie crust dough. Also, the Sainsburys on Stamford Hill doesn't really sell any, and technically this whole baking challenge is about making everything from scratch. So pull yourself together and mix the softened butter and flour together. Roll the unyielding dough with your hands until it becomes a softer dough that you can roll out and flatten on the table. I used a cup to flatten it. Lay the rolled dough over a cake tin with a base which can be easily separated (you'll thank yourself for doing this later) and press it in with your fingers to form a base. Bake at 250 degrees C for about 10 minutes (a blind bake might help the quiche hold its contents better and ensures the crust will be cooked all through). It should just slightly brown and harden so it will hold the wet quiche filling better later. That's what I imagine in my head anyway. Do most people blind bake their pastry shells in advance? I have no idea. Did I mention this was the first time I tried to make a pie/quiche thing? I'm actually surprised it looks pie/quiche-like! Are any of you still reading this stream-of-consciousness-recipe?

Onion Quiche Filling

3 large onions, finely sliced
5 large chestnut mushrooms, sliced
1 green pepper, sliced
2 eggs
Half a courgette
Mozzarella Cheese
Half cup of milk
Salt and Pepper to taste

Fry onions, mushrooms, peppers, and anything else you have in the fridge until soft and caramelized brown. Allow this to cool slightly before you add it to a big bowl of beaten eggs and milk and cheese. I'm just saying that you probably should let it cool because I am imagining that if you added the fried ingredients in while it was super hot you would scramble the eggs. Anyway. Surprisingly, this made just enough filling to fill my quiche. SHOCK! SURPRISE! This recipe is a combination of coincidence (the ingredients i could get) and also a mashup with an onion tart, which I also wanted to make but didn't. So if you are into the more eggy and cheesy sort of quiches then maybe you would reduce the filling and add more of eggs and milk/cream. Finally before it goes into the oven, scatter more mozzarella over the top and decorate with courgette slices.

Throw in a preheated oven of MAXIMUM TEMPERATURE for 15 minutes, then turn it down to about 200 deg for about 30-45 min. You might want to cover it with tin foil or another baking tray in order to prevent the top from burning too quickly as you let the rest of the gooey quiche bits inside cook. I'm not very sure what the correct cooking time should be but you should be fine if you just check it every ten minutes.

Rainbow Cupcake

Despite my overall preference for being outdoors and traveling, over the years I have somehow also cultivated somewhat "domestic" interests such as crocheting/knitting/sewing... and ultimately also the humble pleasures of cooking and baking. I imagine food to be sculptural! Experimental! Exciting! A matter of chemistry! I would love to become a food scientist one day. But the lack of an oven in most of the places I have temporarily resided in has resulted in a dearth of baking experiments until this point, so, here... HERE... finally, with one, NOW THIS IS TIME FOR THE BIG FAT BAKE OFF!

How to make Rainbow Cupcakes

Food coloring! Where have you been all my life? Now I know you are going to say that all the food coloring is bad for you but sometimes its nice to eat rainbows. Its like buying a shoe with an elaborate shoe sole on the inside. I don't know why girls buy boring black flat shoes with colorful insides but I have a theory. Maybe, even though nobody is going to see it when your feet are inside the shoes, its still nice to know that you're stepping on rainbows. Or wearing rainbow underwear. Or eating rainbow cupcakes. So… here be the steps to the cupcakes I baked on the occasion of G-Nasty's birthday…

Cupcake mix

150g unsalted butter
150g caster sugar
175g self-raising flour
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Food coloring (red, blue, green, yellow)


This recipe is a variation on some white cake mix that uses self-raising flour rather than baking powder because, well, that's what I happened to pick up at the store. After I got back I realized I had forgotten to write out a proper recipe and I couldn't find the original recipe anymore, so I had to backwards engineer this recipe into a semblance of a cake mix. Some liberties may have been taken.

Let the butter soften on the counter for about half an hour, then put it in a bowl with all the caster sugar. Rub it into the butter until well-mixed, then add the flour, eggs, and vanilla extract. You might also want to add some water to make it more like a gloopy paste rather than thick dough. Stir and divide into 6 glasses.



You'll need to colour them in this order:

Red
Orange
Yellow
Green
Blue
Purple

Obviously, Orange is made from Red+Yellow and Purple is made from Blue+Red. The rest are "as is". You might need around 4-5 drops of food coloring for each cup. Add more if you want the colour to be more intense.



In this picture you might see the white flecks in the cupcake mix. This is the result of the butter not melting because the kitchen is frozen and I think its actually colder outside in the kitchen than in the fridge itself. I can't even tell if the fridge is actually working. The insides of the fridge are certainly warmer than the air outside in the kitchen. Oh why doesn't the kitchen have a working heater? Anyway, if the butter flecks disturb you then you could also try to microwave the butter. That's assuming your kitchen is also at subzero temperatures like this one. Guess you can't have it all... Oven... Freezing.... Oven.... Freezing... well, at least there's an oven.

Put about one tablespoon of each color mix into each cupcake. Do not stir, only drip/pour each layer in. You can shake the pan to help it settle into all the corners. This will make exactly 12 cupcakes if you have calculated everything correctly. The cupcake should be about 1/2 to 2/3 full before you stick it in the over.



Ready for the Oven now!

Preheat the oven to about 180 deg C then throw the whole lot in the oven for approximately 12-15 minutes. Meanswhile you can make some icing, which could go something like this:

Cupcake Icing

150g unsalted butter
250g icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons hot water

This seemed really dry and difficult to work with hence the final picture shows the point where i got fed up rolling the icing into sheets and just smeared it on vigorously. The icing is almost pure sugar and butter so if that kind of sweet icing is not your thing then… DON'T DO IT. The cupcake will be slightly sweet already although could be complimented by jam and a moderate application of icing (not an immoderate amount as in the above photos…

Pan-frying Tofu/Tau Kwa

The secret to pan-frying tofu?

Press and dry with a kitchen towel. You don't need to use any oil to fry it, the point is to dry out the skin and heat the tofu through completely so its cooked. The process should be neat and elegant.

Tea Leaf Eggs

Today when P stepped out of the house, I threw together the materials for this in half an hour. And left it there for a long while. And then it was done! Easy!

Tea Leaf Eggs

6 eggs
3 bags of black tea (chinese and english tea are both fine)
1 cinnamon stick (about 2 inches)
1 tsp chinese five spice powder
5 cloves
5 tbsp soy sauce
3 cups water

Boil eggs in plain water for about 3 minutes until solid.
Crack with the back of your spoon. These will form the marbled patterns on the eggs.
Put in the rest of the ingredients.
Simmer on low fire and steep for at least 2 hours.

DONE!

Mini-steak

I wonder why I did not explore the mysteries of steak earlier. This turned out far more tasty than I expected. This may have also been because I put the beef in this improvised/made-up marinade for a few hours longer than I expected to have it marinade because Mr P was packing in the house like crazy so cooking was delayed but in the end these were very easy to prepare and the results were unbelievably tasty.

Perfect Steak Marinade

2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp worcestershire sauce
1 tsp of butter, melted
thyme or italian herbs

1. Marinade for as long as you can possibly bear (1-3 hours)
2. Fry in a skillet with butter for 10 minutes or less for medium rare steak. Timing depends on thickness and requires some estimation. As a general rule, do not exceed 10 minutes.

As for the sides...

Boiled Potatoes

1. Skin the potatoes and cut them into large chunks.
2. Throw them into a big pot of water with a pinch of salt. Boil for approx 20 min.
3. Heat a small sauceboat of butter. Pour butter over potatoes as required.

Caramelised Onions

1. Cut up onions.
2. Fry in pan at moderate heat. Add cracked pepper and a pinch of sugar. If feeling fancy, make a red wine reduction along with the remnants of the sauce produced after pan frying the beef.

Spicy Tofu Soup

Made this a while ago because I thought it would be nice to eat some tofu. Recently discovered the awesomeness of SILKEN TOFU. DELICIOUS SILKEN TOFU IN VEGETABLE BROTH! The dill adds an interesting dimension, although to be honest I added the dill because now i have used up all the Turmeric from making curries out of everything.

4 cloves garlic
2 carrots
2 tomatoes
2 onions
1 packet of Silken Tofu
1.5 Vegetable Stock Cube
1 tsp cumin
Some coriander
Chilli Flakes
1 tsp dill weed

1. Cut up all the vegetables
2. Fry all vegetable components in a bit of olive oil
3. Add the spices. If it is getting very dry at this point, put in a bit of water.
4. After onions and vegetables are slightly softened, add around 2 litres of water
5. Now cut up the tofu while its in the box. Then throw it all in.
   
6. Bring to a boil, then simmer for as long as you want.
   
7. DONE
   

Fried Potato and Scrambled Eggs

My usual way of making scrambled eggs is to heat a bit of butter till really hot, then pour in the eggs which have already been beaten. The rest is the same, watch it carefully and stir continously, take it off the fire to prevent overcooking, and throw in a bit of milk/cream/creme fraiche at the point just before you consider it done, in order to slow the cooking process at the end and keep it soft and creamy.

The Gordon Ramsay method of scrambled eggs differs slightly from mine; he cracks the eggs whole straight into the pot, throws the knob of butter in. The rest is the same. For some reason I feel it tastes different. I prefer having the butter heated up on its own because I think it imparts some sort of 'nuttiness" to the scrambled eggs. But it could just be me....

1. Cut potatoes into cubes, season with salt, paprika and thyme
2. Fry in a little olive oil, stirring from time to time, until potato starts to fall apart
   
3. Meanswhile cook the scrambled eggs in another pot (see above methods)
   
4. Test the potato cubes if they are cooked through (this will depend on the size of cubes)
5. Serve when everything seems cooked

On hindsight: MAKE POTATO CUBES SMALLER

Cheese and Broccoli Pasta

Repurposed yesterday's broccoli soup creation - added half a cup of cheddar cheese, a dash of milk, and called it a pasta sauce. It was okay I suppose. I wish it were greener. I kinda wish I had some green food colouring. I really wanted to make green eggs and ham today. Or green anything food. I keep googling for things like "GREEN FOOD COLOURING SUBSTITUTE" or "BUTTER SUBSTITUTE" or "TURMERIC SUBSTITUTE" due to the supplies slowly running out because I keep cooking.