Chinese Radish Cake (萝卜糕)

After whatching this episode of vacsoracsata ( a local tv celebs cooking challenge show) and based on the reviews , I had wanted to try the retek salátá (radish salad). I bought a small radish since winter is the best season for radish but after a week of constant searching for the recipe online, I couldn't find the recipe used on the show! (until after i've cooked it , of course). Then I decided to make this chinese dim sum radish cake. My version is without any meat, mushrooms or dried shrimps as most of the recipes would use. Still it tasted fine and I love it as light diner :)....Read more on Wiki

Chinese Radish rice Cake
recipe from here (the link doesn't seem to work...)

Ingredients
2 c radish
4 tsp salt
4 tsp oil
8-10 strips bacon or ham **omitted**
1 1/2 c rice powder
2 c chicken broth or water

Serve with
Hoisin sauce
Shreded carrots
Chopped spring onions

Method
Shred radish; add salt. Heat oil, add radish and cook until half done. Add the rest of the ingredients. Mix well and pour mixture into a round or square baking pan. Steam for 40 minutes.

My alteration :
1) After steaming , I deep fried the cake until golden brown.
2) The texture of my radish cake (see close up below)is different. As I have coated it with rice flour before deep frying it.

Baked fish with spicy stuffing

Seafood is rather expensive here as Hungary is a landlock country. On top of that the current economy only result in even higher prices for "fresh" sea fish. So I've opted for frozen fish from the hyper mart to sooth my craving for sea fish. Last week, I tried this "HEKK" brand and it tasted fine; unlike some of the frozen fish on sale, this doesn't smell and taste too fishy. Sorry I couldn't recognise and name the type of fish that I ate (!) because I just realised that it only says tengeri hal (sea fish) on the packet ... hmm..

If you can find fresh mackerel in your market, this recipe would work well with it! If not, you can always trial on other fish available to you.

Baked fish with spicy "salsa" stuffing
Serves : 2

Ingredients
450gm Fish, washed and cleaned
salt & white pepper, to taste
rice flour (or plain flour) , for coating
oil for frying

Spicy "salsa" stuffing
1/2 red onion, chopped
1/2 tomato, chopped
parsley, chopped
salt & pepper, to taste
soya sauce, to taste
sugar, to taste
erős pista (or sambal oelek), to taste

1) Pre-heat oven
2) Blend together ingredients for salsa.
3) Pat dry fish after washing and cleaning. Slit the top part of fish for stuffing.
4) With high heat, heat oil in a non-stick pan or wok. *oil must be hot otherwise fish will soaked up oil*
5) Season fish with salt and white pepper to taste
6) Stuff the salsa into the slit, keeping aside some for topping *do not over stuffed as it would result in stuffing spill out during frying*
7) Lightly coat fish with rice flour (or plain flour)
8) When oil is hot, carefully place fish in pan/wok and fry until lightly golden
7) Remove lightly golden fish from frying pan/wok, drain away access oil and place fish in baking dish. Top remaining salsa on fish. Bake until salsa is browned and crispy.
8) Serve immediately with rice.

** You can also grill fish in banana leaf. Even more YUMMY!

Easy Chicken Curry

For the cold winter days, I think curry is a good additon to the daily dinner aside from the traditional főzelék (a type of Hungarian vegetable stew) .

The following recipe doesn't require as many spices as other Indian curry recipes yet still manage to satisfy my curry cravings! It goes well with this roti (Indian bread) recipe :)

Chicken curry

Recipe from BBC Good Food

serves 4

Ingredients

4-6 medium tomatoes

1 medium onion

4 tbsp vegetable oil

3cm/1in piece root ginger

2 garlic cloves

1-2 mild green chillies

1 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground turmeric

salt and freshly ground black pepper

100ml/31fl oz water

1 free-range chicken, jointed into 8 pieces, or 8 thighs and/or drumsticks - replaced with chicken breast meat instead

2 tbsp yoghurt

1 lime (or lemon)

a small bunch of coriander leaves

cooked rice, to serve

Added frozen peas, carrots and potatoes for colour and nutritions .

Method

1. To skin the tomatoes, nick the skin of each tomato with the point of a sharp knife, then put the tomatoes in a bowl next to the sink and pour over some very hot water from the kettle to cover. Count to 20, then carefully pour away the water. When the tomatoes are cool enough to handle, peel away the skin, halve the tomatoes, squeeze out most of the pips and juice into an empty bowl, and discard. Chop the flesh roughly and put it down on a plate to one side.

2. Peel and finely chop the onion. Fry the onion in the vegetable oil in a large heavy-based saucepan over low to medium heat for about ten minutes, stirring from time to time so that it turns an even golden brown. Watch carefully to make sure it doesn't burn.

3. Meanwhile, peel and finely chop the ginger and the garlic.

4. Slit the chilli using a sharp knife. Slice the flesh away from the cluster of seeds in the middle. Avoid touching any part of the chilli with your fingers if you can, as it is very easy to get chilli in your eyes, and that will sting. You can use a fork to hold the chilli down or wear rubber gloves. Chop the chilli finely.

5. Measure the ground spices into a teacup. Add the ginger, garlic and chilli to the pan, stir them around and fry for another minute or so. If you want your curry to be hot as well as spicy, include some or all of the chilli seeds. Then add the spices in the cup into the onions. Fry the spices for a minute or two, stirring all the time so that they do not stick. Add some salt and freshly ground black pepper.

6. Pour in the water and the tomatoes, bring to the boil, turn down the heat a little and let the sauce simmer for 5-10 minutes.

7. Add the chicken pieces to the pan and stir them around so they are covered with the sauce. Put the lid on the pan, turn the heat down and let the chicken cook for 30-40 minutes, stirring occasionally. Chicken thighs will take longer to cook than breast pieces.

8. Now add the yoghurt to the chicken and stir it in. When the sauce is gently bubbling again, scoop up a little in a teaspoon, blow it cool and taste it. The sauce will probably taste quite sweet because of the tomatoes. Cut the lime in half and squeeze its juice into the sauce. Stir and taste again, and decide whether you want to add the second half.

9. Finally, chop the fresh coriander leaves and sprinkle them on to the curry just before you serve it with the rice.

My first Guacamole

And my first purchase of avocado!
The last time I had mexican food was about eight years ago (I think..). Although it was a nice experience , it didn't inspire me to cook it at home (also because I hardly cook those days!). Tortilla chips during movie sessions don't count ;)

The recipe for the dip is from Recipezaar. It was good! However, I'll probably leave out the onion the next time. It's just too overpowering for my taste.

Easy Guacamole

Ingredients
3 ripe avocados (ripe as in really dark in color and super soft when squeezed)
1 small onion, finely diced
1 medium tomato, diced
sour cream *optional
salt and pepper, to taste

Directions
1Take avocados and cut into the avocado until you come to the large seed inside.
2Cut around the circumference of the seed.
3With both hands twist the two halves in opposite directions and pull apart.
4Now if your avocados are ripe enough they will separate easily.
5Now carve out each half with a tablespoon.
6Place avocados into a medium bowl and mash and stir until moderately creamy.
7Some people like the avocados more chunky than others-- either way it tastes great.
8Add diced onion and tomatoes to the avocados.
9Add your preference of salt and pepper and taste to see if salty enough.
10In a separate small bowl put in 2 tablespoons of the dip.
11Add 1 tbsp of sour cream and salt again.
12Taste it.
13And decide if you prefer your guacamole with or without sour cream.
14If you like with sour cream add 4 tablespoons or more to the avocado mixture and salt again.
15If not, do nothing and leave it like it is.
16You can do the same with the Tabasco sauce if you like Tabasco sauce.
17Serve chilled with chips or add a little to your taco salad.

Madártej (Hungarian floating islands) again!

Ági posted on my previous post on madártej :

My mom and grandma also prepares very good and creamy madártej, but they never put salt and flour at all. Egg whites they simply beat with about 1 tablespoon sugar.They boil ALL the milk, cook the eggwhite foam in it the same way as you did. Once the foam is done, they put the vanilla sugar or vanilla in it. In between they mix the egg yolk with sugar and little bit of milk, then they pour this into the boiling milk, then cook it on low flame, until it's bit thicker. As I realized, if you keep it in fridge for more time, it will get more and more creamy.

After reading her comment, I retried the same recipe (the next day!) but eliminated the salt and prepared according to Ági's directions. I'm happy with the results. Many thanks Ági! :)

My first Madártej (Hungarian floating islands)

Whenever we return to my in-laws, my m.i.l make this delicious Hungarian dessert for us. Although I love the dessert, I resisted from making it at home because I didn't want to know the calories which go inside it. But I was craving it very much today! So, I quickly checked online for a recipe. It is a good thing to know that it requires simple ingredients which is easily available at home and not as high-calorie as I thought.

As I am typing this, the floating island is still being chilled in the fridge. I did have a small sample of it. It is definitely not as good as my m.i.l's. oh well...it is my first attempt after all.

I found the process of boiling the beaten egg-white (island) a bit too delicate for me to handle; which created a mess. The "island" tasted salty ; while the milk is not thick enough ..may be it is due to that I halved the recipe... However, I do see myself making this again :) Just that I won't be serving it to any Hungarian guests soon..haha.

If made right, the island should be firm and light and the milk should have a consistency of light cream and give a scent of vanilla.

Madártej (Hungarian floating islands)
recipe from here

Ingredients for 6 portions: (I halved the recipe)

1 l milk
4 eggs
100 g + 2 spoonfuls sugar *** too sweet for me
1 teaspoonful flour
1 pinch of salt
1 pod of vanilla *** you may substitute with vanilla sugar

Method :
Divide the eggs and whip the whites with the salt. When it is rather stiff add 2 spoonfuls of sugar and whip until glossy.

Warm the half of milk with the vanilla pod in a shallow saucepan and put dumplings of egg white into it with the help of a tablespoon. Boil the both sides of the dumplings for 1 minute each, then take them out on a sieve. Repeat it until all the egg whites are consumed. Don't overcrowd the pan because the dumplings grow during boiling.

Mix the egg yolks with the rest of sugar and beat until light and foamy. Add the flour, bit by bit the cold milk and in the end sieve the hot milk into it.

Boil the cream with continous stirring on low heat until thickens. Don't let it boil.

Divide immediately into small bowls and top with the white dumplings. Serve chilled.

Rum Balls

I have been wondering how to make the Hungarian kókusz golyó (coconut balls) for quite sometime. My search online brought me to this recipe . Looks easy enough for me. And I'm telling you now it is very easy to prepare! Just make sure you make it a day in advance of the day you plan to serve it.

I've scaled down the recipe to suit the quantity of biscuits in hand (about 110g crushed) ; which yield about 18 balls. The end result I think is quite similar to the original and B said so ,too :)

Note to self
Replaced Nice biscuits to local Győri (Albert) biscuits - scale down to 110g
Replaced sweetened condensed milk to home-made sugar syrup -50g sugar + 20ml hot water
Used essence of rum instead
Soaked raisins (sultanas) in sugar syrup, rum and vanilla extract before adding to dry ingredients.