Thursday, September 16, 2010

Spicy and Sour Soup

2010-09-15 001

I guess this can be interpreted as a version of the Thai TomYum. Although not cooked with authentic ingredients, it is very satisfying especially during the gloomy autumn / winter days !

Spicy and Sour Soup
recipe from Kata Konyha

Ingredients
2 carrots , slice into half rings
1 - 2 tomatoes , quartered
100gm mushrooms, sliced - I've used champion mushrooms, but mixture of oyster mushroom would be good too
1 small onion , chopped finely
1 pc 4cm ginger , grated
1 tsp Green curry paste
1 tsp dried lemon grass
1 1/2 tbsp fish sauce - I was out of it, so replaced with dash of oyster sauce
600 - 700 ml meat stock - I used 1 fish stock cube
1 Tbsp vegetable oil
salt & ground pepper , to taste
Hungarian chili paste (erős pista)
1 Limejuice - didn't have lime juice used lemon instead

Garnishes
Coriander leaves / parsley leaves
Lime slice

Method
1) Heat oil in wok. Sauté chopped onion. Once onion is transparent, add grated ginger. Cook until fragrant. Next put in the green curry paste and lemon grass. Stir and cook for couple of minutes. Then add in mushroom, cook until slightly wilted.

2) Pour in fish stock, fish sauce, carrots, tomatoes. Let it boil and simmer until vegetable is tender.

3) Check and adjust taste by adding salt, ground pepper, Hungarian chili paste and a squeeze of lemon.

4) Serve with garnishes.

You can also eat this as main meal by adding noodles , seafood of your choice, or shredded chicken meat.

useful reference : http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/videos/1040/making-soup

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Monday, September 06, 2010

My version of Floating Island Cake

P1180309 Hungary's cake of the year 2007 was Madártej Torta (Floating Island Cake) ; which became a favourite of ours. However, if we crave it we would have to pre-order a whole cake as our neighbourhood bakery does not include it in their daily offerings .. not a problem, but with just the two of us, it is too big of a cake :(

So, I thought I would try baking it myself. After looking at the long list of ingredients and processes, I backed out :p Then I searched for other similarly named recipes with fewer ingredients before finally decided upon combining two recipes from my recipes folder to see if I can recreate the taste that I craved.

My version of Floating Island Cake (or Egg Custard Cake)

For the base (recipe from
here )
-->
100 g butter, softened
85 g caster sugar (100 ml) - reduced and mixed with vanilla sugar
1 large egg
175 g plain flour (300 ml)
0.5 tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt
-->
First, prepare the pastry. Cream butter and sugar. Mix the dry ingredients, then mix into the butter mixture together with egg. Press the pastry onto the base and sides of a buttered 26 cm springform tin. Put into the fridge to rest for 30 minutes.
For the custard filling
2 eggs, room temperature
1 1/2 cups whole milk
100gm sugar

Pre-heat oven at 180°c.

Lightly beat the eggs, taking care not to produce any air bubbles. Stir in the milk and the sugar.

-->
Take out the base from the fridge, pour the custard filling onto chilled pastry base (over a sieve) . Bake until the custard is cooked and a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean (about 35 minutes). Set aside to cool
To serve
Whipped cream and pipe or spread on top of custard and sprinkle with toasted almond flakes before serving
Verdict
This simple recipe obviously it is not going to taste like the original cake but I'm absolutely happy with my hybrid version :)

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Friday, September 03, 2010

Caramelised fruit and yoghurt cake

No Salty is a new recipes site that I like to browse when I want to be inspired by Hungarian foodies. Since discovering this site, I have been bookmarking lots of recipes as the food photos are so enticing!

Here's a recipe that I've tried recently

Caramelised pears and yoghurt cake
Ingredients
For Caramelising
5 pears
150gm sugar

For the cake
2 eggs
a pinch of salt
150ml sugar
1 sachet vanilla sugar
200ml yoghurt
150ml oil
300ml flour
1 sachet baking powder

Method
1) Pre-heat oven at 170°c

2) Make a light caramel from 150gm sugar. Pour the caramel onto a lightly greased baking dish (I used 18cm round cake tin). Then place cut pears onto caramel.

3) Whisk together eggs and the sugars with a pinch of salt until smooth. Next add in yoghurt and oil. Finally add-in flour (mixed earlier with the baking powder) gradually until everything is incorporated.

4) Pour cake batter onto caramel and fruit. Bake for 35-40 mins. until skewers came out clean.



Notes
I've used peaches instead of pears. As you can see I wasn't patient enough to caramelise the sugar into a deeper shade. The result was more like syrup.

The baked cake was moist and sweet. Too sweet despite that I have reduced the amount of sugar. Next time I will use a bigger cake tin as I think the batter was a little thick and in result the cake was too moist.

P1180306

Since I have another tub of yoghurt and opened jar of sour cherries in the fridge, I decided to bake the cake again the next day! This time I've halved the recipe. I skipped the caramelisation process but instead sprinkled some light brown sugar on my greased cake tin. The rest just followed the recipe above.

I like the sour cherry version more plus as this version is halved the orig. recipe, the cake portion is more balance in my opinion. The tartness of the cherries is a good contrast to the sweetness.
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Thursday, September 16, 2010

Spicy and Sour Soup

2010-09-15 001

I guess this can be interpreted as a version of the Thai TomYum. Although not cooked with authentic ingredients, it is very satisfying especially during the gloomy autumn / winter days !

Spicy and Sour Soup
recipe from Kata Konyha

Ingredients
2 carrots , slice into half rings
1 - 2 tomatoes , quartered
100gm mushrooms, sliced - I've used champion mushrooms, but mixture of oyster mushroom would be good too
1 small onion , chopped finely
1 pc 4cm ginger , grated
1 tsp Green curry paste
1 tsp dried lemon grass
1 1/2 tbsp fish sauce - I was out of it, so replaced with dash of oyster sauce
600 - 700 ml meat stock - I used 1 fish stock cube
1 Tbsp vegetable oil
salt & ground pepper , to taste
Hungarian chili paste (erős pista)
1 Limejuice - didn't have lime juice used lemon instead

Garnishes
Coriander leaves / parsley leaves
Lime slice

Method
1) Heat oil in wok. Sauté chopped onion. Once onion is transparent, add grated ginger. Cook until fragrant. Next put in the green curry paste and lemon grass. Stir and cook for couple of minutes. Then add in mushroom, cook until slightly wilted.

2) Pour in fish stock, fish sauce, carrots, tomatoes. Let it boil and simmer until vegetable is tender.

3) Check and adjust taste by adding salt, ground pepper, Hungarian chili paste and a squeeze of lemon.

4) Serve with garnishes.

You can also eat this as main meal by adding noodles , seafood of your choice, or shredded chicken meat.

useful reference : http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/videos/1040/making-soup

AddThis Social Bookmark Button

Monday, September 06, 2010

My version of Floating Island Cake

P1180309 Hungary's cake of the year 2007 was Madártej Torta (Floating Island Cake) ; which became a favourite of ours. However, if we crave it we would have to pre-order a whole cake as our neighbourhood bakery does not include it in their daily offerings .. not a problem, but with just the two of us, it is too big of a cake :(

So, I thought I would try baking it myself. After looking at the long list of ingredients and processes, I backed out :p Then I searched for other similarly named recipes with fewer ingredients before finally decided upon combining two recipes from my recipes folder to see if I can recreate the taste that I craved.

My version of Floating Island Cake (or Egg Custard Cake)

For the base (recipe from
here )
-->
100 g butter, softened
85 g caster sugar (100 ml) - reduced and mixed with vanilla sugar
1 large egg
175 g plain flour (300 ml)
0.5 tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt
-->
First, prepare the pastry. Cream butter and sugar. Mix the dry ingredients, then mix into the butter mixture together with egg. Press the pastry onto the base and sides of a buttered 26 cm springform tin. Put into the fridge to rest for 30 minutes.
For the custard filling
2 eggs, room temperature
1 1/2 cups whole milk
100gm sugar

Pre-heat oven at 180°c.

Lightly beat the eggs, taking care not to produce any air bubbles. Stir in the milk and the sugar.

-->
Take out the base from the fridge, pour the custard filling onto chilled pastry base (over a sieve) . Bake until the custard is cooked and a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean (about 35 minutes). Set aside to cool
To serve
Whipped cream and pipe or spread on top of custard and sprinkle with toasted almond flakes before serving
Verdict
This simple recipe obviously it is not going to taste like the original cake but I'm absolutely happy with my hybrid version :)

AddThis Social Bookmark Button

Friday, September 03, 2010

Caramelised fruit and yoghurt cake

No Salty is a new recipes site that I like to browse when I want to be inspired by Hungarian foodies. Since discovering this site, I have been bookmarking lots of recipes as the food photos are so enticing!

Here's a recipe that I've tried recently

Caramelised pears and yoghurt cake
Ingredients
For Caramelising
5 pears
150gm sugar

For the cake
2 eggs
a pinch of salt
150ml sugar
1 sachet vanilla sugar
200ml yoghurt
150ml oil
300ml flour
1 sachet baking powder

Method
1) Pre-heat oven at 170°c

2) Make a light caramel from 150gm sugar. Pour the caramel onto a lightly greased baking dish (I used 18cm round cake tin). Then place cut pears onto caramel.

3) Whisk together eggs and the sugars with a pinch of salt until smooth. Next add in yoghurt and oil. Finally add-in flour (mixed earlier with the baking powder) gradually until everything is incorporated.

4) Pour cake batter onto caramel and fruit. Bake for 35-40 mins. until skewers came out clean.



Notes
I've used peaches instead of pears. As you can see I wasn't patient enough to caramelise the sugar into a deeper shade. The result was more like syrup.

The baked cake was moist and sweet. Too sweet despite that I have reduced the amount of sugar. Next time I will use a bigger cake tin as I think the batter was a little thick and in result the cake was too moist.

P1180306

Since I have another tub of yoghurt and opened jar of sour cherries in the fridge, I decided to bake the cake again the next day! This time I've halved the recipe. I skipped the caramelisation process but instead sprinkled some light brown sugar on my greased cake tin. The rest just followed the recipe above.

I like the sour cherry version more plus as this version is halved the orig. recipe, the cake portion is more balance in my opinion. The tartness of the cherries is a good contrast to the sweetness.
AddThis Social Bookmark Button