Martha Stewart's Soft Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

I have been craving for chocolate chip cookies for the longest time.
All the rainy weather makes me feel like it is really the season to enjoy chocolate chip cookies with a nice cup of tea.
Hubby and I have been feeling heaty thus I have been shelving the idea for the longest time.

Come last weekend, I could take it no more...I took action.
I would have attempt my friend, Grace's recipe but as I was outside and I cannot seem to locate the recipe online, I googled and found Martha Steward's recipe thus I decided to try it.

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature      

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 cup packed light-brown sugar

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

2 large eggs

2 cups (about 12 ounces) semisweet and/or milk chocolate chips (I used semisweet chocolate chip)

Instructions:

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour and baking soda; set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the butter with both sugars; beat on medium speed until light and fluffy. Reduce speed to low; add the salt, vanilla, and eggs. Beat until well mixed, about 1 minute. Add flour mixture; mix until just combined. Stir in the chocolate chips. (I do not have a mixer thus I whisk everything by hand.)(T_T)

2) Drop heaping tablespoon-size balls of dough about 2 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper. (You can opt for cookie scoop if you have. I used a teaspoon as I prefer bite size cookies)

3) Bake until cookies are golden around the edges, but still soft in the center, 8 to 10 minutes. Remove from oven, and let cool on baking sheet 1 to 2 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack, and let cool completely. Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature up to 1 week.

I definitely prefer milk chocolate chips I guess but the supermarket I went too only has semi-sweet chocolate chips. On the overall, this is quite a success except that I used less flour then required simply because I ran out of it. I believe with more flour it would have turned out quite splendidly. I might also adjust the sugar proportion I guess. I still prefer it to be a bit softer....

Well, we all learn and let's hope my next try will be much better. =)

Korean JaJungMyeon

Time really flies and before I know it, it is nearing the end of November...
I had promised to post about my try on Korean Jajungmyeon so here it is.

What is Jajungmyeon?

You will be surprised that this is actually a Korean version of Chinese Zhajiangmian (炸醬麵) which originated from Shandong, China~!
It is a common dish that can be found in Korean Chinese restaurants.
My 1st try of Korean Jajungmyeon was actually in Singapore, at Raffles Place Chevron House,

JINMI KOREAN FOOD PTE LTD. This shop started my liking for Korean food. Jajungmyeon actually reminds me of my mum's cooking, thus the unusual love for this particular Korean dish. Attempts :

This is not my first time making this simple dish. However, the 1st time was a disaster. I had followed the recipe on Maangchi.com previously but for some reason the meal turn out to be bitter. I was wondering if it could be the zucchini until I researched more and realised this.

Depending on whether the bean paste you bought has been pre-fried or roasted before, you might actually need to fry it with sugar before using it for cooking the Jajungmyeon. This is to take away the bitterness of the sauce. Ta-da~! Mystery solved. It is with anticipation that I attempt this dish again. I smell success...lolx.

This time round, I took reference to 2 recipes.1 from Korean Bapsang and another from kimchi MOM.


My Simplified recipe is as follows :

Ingredients :

(I cut away the pork skin but leave it so that I can have some oil when frying it)

 

(A small portion of the cucumber sliced thinly for garnishing)

- A slice of pork meat, diced.
(I opt for thigh meat as hubby says pork belly meat is too fattening. You can use pork belly or beef )
- 3 small potatoes, diced.
- 1 carrot, diced.
- 1 large onion, diced.
- 1 cucumber , set aside some cucumber, julienned and diced up the remainder.
(Note that I did not use zucchini this time as I do not want to waste the entire cucumber just for garnishing. If you want, you can add in 1 zucchini instead and have some cucumber, julienned for garnishing)
- 2 tablespoon of ChunJung, heap (Black Bean Paste)
- 1 tablespoon of oil (to fry the bean paste)
- 1 tablespoon of sugar
- 1 tablespoon of potato starch
- 1 and 1/4 cup of water (1 cup for the dish and 1/4cup for the potato starch)
- Oriental Style Noodles

Instructions:

1) Add the black bean paste to a small saucepan with the oil, sugar, and the optional oyster sauce. Fry it over medium heat for 2 - 3 minutes, stirring constantly. Scoop the bean paste out and set aside for later use.
(If using pre-fried/roasted black bean paste, you can skip this process. Just add the sugar and the optional oyster sauce when stirring in the bean paste.) 

2)  Heat a large pan with a bit of oil over high heat.
     Add the pork and stir fry until almost cooked.
     Pour the excess oil out and remove the pork skin.

3) Add the vegetables and cook until soft, stirring occasionally.
    ( You can opt to add the carrots and potatoes in 1st before adding in the cucumbers and onions since these take a longer time to soften. For myself, I had cut them up as small as possible to speed up the cooking process.)

4)  Add bean paste to the vegetables and pork. Make sure that all ingredients are evenly coated with the bean paste.

5) Add water and let it simmer over medium high heat for about 5 minutes.

6) Mix the potato starch in 1/4 cup of water and slowly pour into the sauce while stirring.
    The sauce should thicken after some time.

7) Let the sauce simmer and add more sugar if you prefer the sauce to be sweeter.

At this point, you can opt to switch off the fire or let it simmer for a while, while you cook the noodles.

8) Bring a pot of water with some salt to boil.

9) Add in the noodles till cooked. (Careful not to overcook the noodles. It should be springy)

10 ) After draining the noodles from the pot, quickly dip into cold water before transferring to the bowls (Optional step)

11) Scoop the sauce over the noodles and garnish with cucumber.

12) Serve while hot.

I was extremely happy to succeed in getting the taste right. Upon serving to hubby, I asked after a few mouthful into the dish if this taste good. He say "yah", and continue munching.
I then tried to prompt for feedbacks such as, is it too sweet, too much, etc.
Guess what was his answer?

"Dear, really. It is delicious. Look, I am almost done with mine." And he flash me his nearly empty bowl.

At that point, I am only like 1/4 or less done with mine. If you look at the photo above, you will be able to tell that the portion is pretty huge.
Thus, I rest my case from probing for feedbacks and tuck into my humble Korean meal. =)

This post is linked to the event, Aspiring Bakers #37: Korean - Feast of Hansik (November 2013) hosted by Grace of Life can be simple .

Steam egg with silken tofu and prawns

How was everybody's weekend?

Mine was pretty eventful, my husband and I went shopping with 1 of his best friend for household items as his friend has just shifted into his new flat. We had a great time helping to look around for  suitable stuff for his new place. I was pretty happy with the trip and it brought back memories of when my hubby and I were shopping for our new place. And I discovered this really delicious donut at Ikea. $2 for 4 pieces. It was covered in snow sugar and it has chocolate fillings within. OMG. Its super delicious~! You guys gotta try it when you are there. No pictures I'm sorry..was too busy eating. LOLx...We ended the day at his friend's place, playing with his son. Absolutely adorable...
Wish we have kids soon...but I guess good things have to wait...=)

On Sunday, we went on a family + furkids gathering at K9 Kulture.

Left the house with an excited Kira

The Journey...

we tried very hard to make the furkids look into the camera....

The food for human is not bad. I did not order any food for Kira as I am always a tiny bit sceptical with outside food... They tend to look greasy. But my cousins' furkids enjoyed the meatballs. We had a ball of a time but I was totally exhausted by the end of Sunday.



Thus after an eventful weekend, my husband and I were really on low batt mode and he requested for a simple 1 dish porridge dinner. I readily agreed and decided to make steam egg with silken tofu and prawns.

I found a recipe online from Weeknite Meals blog and made the following adaptions : (http://weeknitemeals.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/steamed-silken-tofu-with-shrimp-and-egg/)

Ingredients:

1 pkg Silken Tofu 1 tube of egg tofu
10-12 large fresh Shrimp
2 eggs ( I used 3 instead) 2 scallions
1 ½ tsp (each) chicken flavored seasoning, soy sauce
2tsb chicken stock  Replaced with water
1 tsp sesame oil

Instructions :

1. Slice silken tofu into 1 cm thick pieces. Cut off tips of scallions, rinse and thinly slice into pieces.
2. Remove shell and head from shrimps. Rinse well, butterfly the shrimp and remove guts, then place on top of shrimp.
3. In a bowl, crack the eggs and whisk together with 1 ½ tsp chicken flavored seasoning  and some chicken stock  light soy sauce.
4. Pour egg mixture on tofu and shrimps.
5. Steam for 10-15 minutes. Remove and set aside.
 6. Mix together 1 ½ tsp light soy sauce with 1 tsp sesame oil, and pour on the steamed tofu and shrimps.
    Garnish with thinly sliced scallions.

The final product :

Did not turn out smooth..=_=

Notes:

- The reason I did not use scallions was because I bought my ingredients from a supermarket and the quantity they sell is too much for a single dish. I am worried that I will have wasted thus did not add them in. Feel free to add it when you try this out on your own.

- I replaced chicken stock with water as I do not have ready chicken stock and I am not in favour of chicken stock cubes thus decided to use water instead. I estimated about 3 halves of the egg shells amount but should have added more I feel as my egg did not turn out as smooth as chawanmushi.

In the end I added preserved choysum for dinner. 

Hubby love the steam egg with tofu and prawns. We both feel that the sesame oil really brings out the flavour a lot.

This is really a simple 10mins dish that is really helpful for us working adults. Not to mention that it is considered a healthy dish as well~!

Now, I wonder what should the correct amount of water to add for steam egg.....hmmm....

Pan Fried Promfret with Caramelised Onion Topping + Tofu & Egg Omelette

For the longest time, I wanted to cook fish. I mean, I love eating fish thus it only makes sense to try to cook them.

I set out to search for a recipe that I can handle. I wanted to make this fish dish I had whenever my friends and I goes to Haja Maimunah. It has this sweet & spicy black sauce. (omg...I wish I can have some now) I searched and I found this recipe instead from Annelicious Food.

This is a Chinese recipe I think and I decided to try this instead since I am not sure where to get the Malay recipe. Will get it from my dear friend Nora soon. Keep you guys posted...

Pan Fried Promfret with Caramelised Onion Topping

Ingredient

• 1 black Pomfret
• 1 large Onion
• 3 slices of ginger, julienned
• 1 + 1 tbsp Soy Sauce
• ½ tbsp Sugar 
• ½ tbsp Sesame Oil
• 1 tsp Salt
• some Spring Onion for garnishing

Method

1. Clean fish, pat dry using kitchen towel. Rub 1 tsp salt all over the fish.
2. In a non-stick pan, or Happycall pan if you have. Heat a tablespoon of oil, pan fry the fish under medium low heat. Just fry it slowly. Like that, you will have nice and crispy fish skin outside and soft fish meat inside. Heat off, dish up.
3. Using the same pan, add in ginger and sesame oil, fry till fragrant. Heat off. Pour a tablespoon of soya sauce on it, set aside.
4. In a skillet, heat a tablespoon of oil, add in onion, under medium heat, fry till onion turned soft. Add 1 tbsp soy sauce and ½ tbsp Sugar. Continue to fry till onions turned caramelized. 
5. Pour caramelized onion on top of the fish, pour over the ginger and soya sauce, sprinkle with onion and there you are.

As I did not manage to dry the fish properly before frying, the fish skin stuck to the pan and I ended up with a skinless fish.I followed this recipe pretty strictly but added water when I was caramelising the onions as the sauce appears too concentrated.  Here is my end result of the dish.

Pan Fried Promfret with Caramelised Onion Topping

(pretty ugly right.=_=' Will try harder next time)



Notes :
- I made 2 slits across the body of the fish front and back to allow it to be cooked easier. Read it on another blog while I was searching for the recipe.
- The recipe calls for a large onion and I bought the yellow onion instead of the red one thinking it will be sweeter. Will try with the red onions next time.
- As the recipe did not specify if the soy sauce should be dark or light soya sauce, I decided to add dark soy sauce. My sauce turned out to be rather black unlike what I saw on Annelicious Food blog. Could it be due to the dark soy sauce I used is the thick version similar to those we get from Hainanese chicken rice stall? hmm..
- I wonder if the flavour would be better if we add a little oyster sauce here? Will it go well with the dish?

Personal Thots:
The flavour turns out nice except for it becoming skinless. lol. Hubby says that its abit blend but I thought the taste was ok except that the onions could use abit more sugar. It tastes similar to what my mum cooks except that she will add in some chilli. I should probably do that the next time. lolx~!

I have also searched for a tofu & egg omelette. For the longest time, my hubby and I enjoyed the dish at my mother-in-law's place. Thinking that that recipe should be relatively simple, we tried but always failed to get the correct taste. Determine to succeed this time I googled and found this recipe which is close enough from Cloud9Food .

Tofu n Egg Omelette

Ingredients- 110g hard tofu
- 1 large egg
- 1/2 tsp soya sauce
- 1/2 tsp sesame oil
- dash of pepper
- a little oil for frying

Method

1. In a small bowl, mash the tofu with the back of a spoon. Crack an egg into the tofu and mix gently until well combined.2. Add the soya sauce, sesame oil and pepper to the mixture and mix well.

3. In a small non-stick frying pan or small egg pan, heat up a little oil over medium heat.4. Pour the tofu and egg mixture into the pan and smooth the top of the mixture so that the height is even.
5. Cook over medium heat until the tofu omelette is golden brown and firm underneath. With a small spatula, slowly separate the omelette from the sides of the pan. When the mixture is solid enough to turn, quickly flip it over with the spatula (it can get a little tricky here). 
6. Cook the other side, until the omelette is golden brown on both sides and firm. Cut the omelette up into cubes or wedges with your spatula. The inside should be firm and not runny. Serve hot or cold.

Tofu & Egg Omelette

(Nicely done but should have fried it longer...)

 

Personal thots :
The only thing I changed is to use egg tofu instead of hard tofu.
I would say mashing up the tofu really makes the job a lot easier as oppose to slicing it into big pieces. The taste was good but as compared to what my mother-in-law cooks, something is still lacking. Could it be I need to fry it longer? Hmm...

On the overall, I am pretty satisfied with the end results but could have done a better job at pan frying the fish. This definitely calls for practise. I vaguely remember my mum commenting that the fish has to be very dry to get a good fry. I should have consulted her before I try this dish.. =_='

The tofu and egg omelette, a dish that is surprisingly simple and nice but I am having trouble getting it just right. 2 simplest ingredients but requires lots of knowledge and experience in handling I guess.

My dinner turns out pretty decent and hubby seems to enjoy it as well.
(Though I hope its not coz he bobian....)

Now how did your dinner cooking episode go? =)
I have bought my next ingredient, chunjang (black soybean paste).
Can you guess what I am gonna make next?
Can't wait till my next round of cooking...

This post is linked to the event, Little Thumbs up organised by Doreen from my little favourite DIY and Zoe of Bake for Happy Kids, hosted by Mich of Piece of Cake at this post.

Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies

My 1st try at Chocolate chip cookies was about a month ago where I finally plucked up the courage to try a recipe from my friend's blog(www.gracephua.blogspot.sg/2012/11/chocolate-chip-cookie-10.html?m=1)  (After almost a year of procrastination...lolx) It turned out super delicious and I could not help but look forward to my next bake.

After sharing my 1st results with Grace, she encouraged me to participate in themed baking events on http://smallsmallbaker.blogspot.sg/p/aspiring-bakers.html .

Guess what? In October, their theme is - Aspiring Bakers #36: Choc-a-Cookie (October 2013) hosted by Genie of Honeybee916food  ~!!!
(http://honeybee916food.blogspot.sg/2013/09/aspiring-bakers-36-choc-cookie-october.html) 

I decided to try and bake another batch of cookies and participate as well. Wish me luck~!! \(^-^)/

As I love banana chocolate and being a newbie to baking, I decided to hunt for a recipe to create banana chocolate chip cookies. And guess what? I found the following recipe from allrecipes.com. http://allrecipes.com/recipe/banana-chocolate-chip-cookies/

Ingredients :

- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 cup white sugar
- 2/3 cup butter, softened
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup mashed bananas
- 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Instructions:

1) Preheat Oven to 200 Degrees Celsius.
2) Grease cookie sheets. Shift flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda together and set aside.
3) Cream the butter and sugar till light and fluffy.
4) Beat in the eggs and vanilla.
5) Mix in bananas
6) Add flour mixture and stir till combined then add in the chocolate chips.
7) Spoon the dough onto the greased cookie sheets.
8) Bake in preheated oven for 12 to 15 minutes.

As I am a novice, I followed the recipe exactly except that I refrigerated the dough overnight.

The Dough is ready for a chill out at The Refrigerator.

 

 

After much anticipation of having moist & cake-like banana chocolate chip cookies, I finally put my 1st bake into the oven.

However, as I am a tv-addict, I dropped into drama series while waiting and my first bake turn out to be crispy. (=_=")

*Warning to self : Never watch the TV while baking.

At least not drama series.

 

After wasting the 2 cookies, I decided to concentrate and tada~! Successful attempt~!!

Looking nice and fluffy. *anticipating*

Success~!!

 

My 1st food taster, my beloved hubby, says not bad and decided to bring them to work. I was hoping he share a few pieces with his colleague and asked for feedbacks but he said nope he didn't. He was gonna have them all. ( -.-)looks at his tummy...No......

 

I brought some to the office and offered 1 to my colleague who says its not bad. Quite nice. You cannot imagine the happiness bubbling inside me. I let out a delighted "woohoo"...lolx!

 

Having said that, my personal opinion of the recipe would be as follows:

 

> definitely will use milk chocolate chips instead as I feel that semi-sweet choc chips does not seems to bring out the correct flavour...Prefer it to be sweeter...

> Would definitely use extremely ripen bananas as much as Ivan can tolerate (he often try to discard my bananas when I am allowing them to ripen) (-_-')
> I think a little more butter would be better as well.

 

Special thanks to my guru, Grace Phua, for sharing with me her knowledge whenever I am in doubt and for my hubby, who helped me creamed the butter and sugar when my arms cannot take it...*I lost my mum's mixer...haiz.*

Apologies to my furkid, Kira, who kept sitting near me patiently and expectantly...Mummy's gonna bake your cookies & cake soon ok...

Anyway, to sum up, the satisfaction that I get from a successful bake is no lesser than cooking.
It is even much more rewarding when you get praises or appreciation. *grin*
I am definitely addicted to both baking and cooking but I really got to scale down the portions though... =Þ

Now on to the next dish / bake~!



Angel Hair With Spicy Shrimp

I have always enjoyed pasta with white wine sauce and to my delight, I found a recipe on realsimple.com while searching for something simple to cook for dinner yesterday.
Excited , I set off to get the ingredients after work.

Recipe : Angel Hair With Spicy Shrimp.
Serves 4. Cooking time : 15mins
Ingredients :

12 ounces angel hair pasta or spaghetti (3/4 of a box)

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 pound peeled and deveined medium shrimp

3/4 cup dry white wine

1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper

kosher salt

2 tablespoons butter

During the search for ingredients :

I hit a "road block" when I saw "dry white wine". What exactly is that? Is it just simple white wine? Or is it something specific. I decided to try searching the supermarket for the exact term. To my dismay, nothing fits. So I thought, could it be cooking wine? I saw Cooking White Wine and decided to look it up on Google. To my surprise, it is not recommended to use that simply because, if it says cooking wine, it meant that it is not fit for drinking. Strictly for cooking. It then suggested to buy white wine but avoid sweet wines. Figuring that it meant no Moscato, I went to the wine corner to look for the smallest bottle of wine I can find. So I got JACOB'S CREEK CHARDONNAY, 187ml.

Instructions :

1. Cook the pasta according to the package directions. Drain and return pasta to the pot.
2. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, for 1 minute (do not let it brown).
3. Add the shrimp, wine, red pepper, and ½ teaspoon salt. Simmer until the shrimp are opaque, 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in the butter.
4. Toss the pasta with the shrimp mixture.

I followed the recipe but adjusted the amount of ingredients required since I am only cooking for only 1 person. It turned out to be rather bitter as I forgot to lower the amount required when it comes to the wine part... Silly me. Nevertheless, I am exactly at realising that to cook white wine sauce is so simple. Definitely gonna try again. Did not take any pictures last night. Will take the pictures when I try the recipe out again.

Told my hubby about my new found recipe and he simply ask me, "What about cream sauce? Did you find any recipe for cream sauce?" *twitch-twitch*

Anyway, please do share with me if you know what wine to use or has any recommendation.

Till my next cooking ....

Celine.....