Summer Salad: Home-made Wafu dressing (improvisation)

It's been a hot summer and the hot weather won't leave for the next few weeks! Food is hardly delicious under such condition, which is why one should turn to something nutty and easy to make. No cooking required -- unless you consider boiling water "cooking".

Alright, less talk. 

Timeline:
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Ready time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:
2 tbsp white sesame seeds
1 tbsp Konbu water
1 tbsp rice vinegar
2 tbsp cup soysauce
1 tbsp freshly grinded onion
1 tbsp sugar

1. Wash the piece of Konbu and soak it in hot water for about 20 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, grind about 1 tbsp of onion, be sure to keep the juice -- it will help create a sweet after taste.
3. Grind the sesame seeds. You can do it with a coffee grinder, which will take you less than 10 seconds, or you can do it manually in a mortar with a pestle, which will result a more interesting taste.
4. After 20 minutes, when the Konbu water is ready, remove the kelp and add in rice vinegar, soysauce, onion and sugar. Mix well and finally add in the grinded sesame.
5. It can be served right away, however, in order to get a more sophisticated onion sweet taste, it is suggested to let it sit for at least 20 minutes. Serve it with a cabbage salad or boiled spinach.

Good luck and enjoy! 

Maple Walnut Squares

The ground hog has long woken up, it means Spring is at our door. And when one says "Spring," I think "Maple."

At last, it is now maple season! Whether you have already been to the sugar shack or not, you should not hold yourself from this treat! Thinking that it might be too sweet? Try it yourself and let me know!


Alright, less talk.

Timeline:
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 32-35 minutes
Time ready: 2 hours

Ingredients:
(base)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup oatmeal
1/4 cup butter (soften to room temperature)
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup milk
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

(top filling)
1 egg
1/4 cup brown sugar
3 tbsp maple syrup
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Instructions:
1. Preheat the oven at 350°F.
2. In a mixer, combine the soft butter and brown sugar. Beat to maximum speed until it becomes fluffy, and then add milk to the combination. This step should take 6 to 8 minutes.
3. When the mix is combined to the butter and milk, add the oatmeal and all-purpose flour and beat at medium speed. This will be the cookie base dough.
4. In a 8"x8" baking pan, place a baking sheet and work the cookie base dough on. Evenly spread the dough and gently press to make it firm and not hard. Then use a fork to pierce the dough.
5. Bake the dough for 20 minutes.
6. While waiting for the cookie base to bake, chop the walnut and mix it with egg, brown sugar and maple syrup.
7. When the cookie base is ready, spread the maple walnut filling on top and spread it evenly. Put it back to the oven and bake it for 12-15 minutes or until the filling looks dry on the surface.
8. After taking the maple walnut bakery out, use a knife to run around the base so that it will be easy to remove later. While it is still hot, it is the right time to cut the bakery -- either squares or diamond (like I did in the picture). Let it sit for an hour and it will be ready to serve.

Good luck and enjoy! 

Zesty Lemon Cake

This lemon cake came from the idea of reaching a simple yet condensed recipe that many will like. It is difficult to choose a ground of satisfying Eastern Asian flavour with North American taste, yet difficult does not mean impossible. The magic of lemons is its rich flavour – sour, sweet, bitter – and its fragrant smell. Hence, this is how this recipe is inspired.

A note on flavours

It is difficult to describe taste in English. In the above paragraph, the taste of lemon appears so simple and bland in words. There are the basic tastes like salty, sweet, bitter, sour or hot, but tastes are not solely limited to these basic experiences, it is not only the tongue that experiences foods, the whole palate, the teeth, the gum and the throat are part of the process. Sadly, in most time, when speaking English, it could become difficult to describe a taste without using words that indirectly describes it. If one takes the instance of Chinese, the taste of lemon is much varied:

酸 Sour

甜Sweet

苦Bitter

澀 Dry and astringent

甘 Sweet as in the aftertaste

清 Clean

The possibility in providing a direct and concrete word would allow the tasting experience a different dimension. With more precise words, the speaker may convey a virtual experience of tasting and it creates less surprises to the people who would eventually do the tasting. This, however, is a personal remark.

Without waiting longer, you may now get to enjoy yourself the recipe of the cake.

Ingredients:

(cake)

300g all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

A pinch of salt

65g granulated sugar

65g butter

3 eggs

1 tsp lemon zest

1 ½ tsp vanilla extract

1 cup milk

2 tbsp lemon juice

2 tbsp plain yogurt

(syrup)

3 tsp honey

3 tsp lemon juice

(glaze)

1/3 cup powdered sugar

2 tsp lemon juice

½ tsp vanilla extract

Hazelnuts (or any kind of nuts)

1. Mix the all-purpose flour with baking powder and salt. Sift for finer taste.

2. Preheat the oven at 350°F.

3. Take a one or two lemons and grate to obtain the zest. Squeeze out the juice and let it aside.

4. Beat sugar and butter until it becomes fluffy in a mixer. Then add in the eggs, one at a time. When it is well blended, add in the zest, vanilla extract, milk and lemon juice.

5. Add in the dried combination from (1) in the blend. Using a spatula, mix everything. When the dried ingredients are well incorporated, mix in the yogurt.

6. In a 12” cake pan, pour the batter. Tap it to evenly spread. Bake for 45 to 55 minutes.

7. While baking, you can prepare the syrup and the glaze.

8. When taking out the baked cake, tap the bottom to let the hot air escape and prevent the cake from shrinking.

9. While the cake is still warm, brush some syrup. When the cake is ready to handle, yet not completely cold, you may spread the glaze. Before the icing freezes, top it with hazelnuts or any nuts of your choice. Let it sit for at least 4 hours to let the syrup to settle down.

Good luck and enjoy! 

Sambuca Beet Cake

I was in search of something nice to the smell and gentle to the look. It turns out that things didn’t go the way I expected. What I mean is that I was hoping that the beets cake would turn red velvet, but it did not at the end. However, the taste was really nice, considering that I have topped it with some liquor. 

Well, let aside the colour failure, I think the taste and the texture of this cake was satisfactory! Plus... Beets are really healthy vegetables, rich in iron, but not everyone likes it. To make it more acceptable to some palates, I understood that adding cocoa and liquor to it would wear off the earthy taste and allow those who are not fond of beets to, hopefully, learn to enjoy it gradually.  

Ingredients:

(cake)

65g granulated sugar

65g butter

3 eggs

1 ½ tsp vanilla extract

1 small beet

1 cup of milk

300g all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

3 tsp cocoa powder

1/3 cup yogurt

Sambuca con Piacere Liquor ( about 2 tbsp)

(glaze)

1 tsp Cocoa

3 tbsp Milk

1 cup Icing sugar

1. In a bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and cocoa powder. Sift it to obtain a finer texture and to prevent cocoa powder chunks.

2. Preheat the oven at 350°F. Grease the pan of choice, I have personally used the bundt cake pan.

3. In a mixer, blend the granulated sugar with the butter until it becomes fluffy.

4. In a blender, cut the beet into tiny pieces and beat it. Add milk in so that it becomes a juice.

5. In the mixture of butter and sugar, add the eggs and vanilla extract. When everything looks fluffy, add in the beets juice.

6. Add in the combination of dried ingredients indicated in (1). It is better mixing by hand using a spatula. Place it in the greased pan. Bake it for 50 minutes to 1 hour.

7. When retrieving the cake out of the oven, make sure to tap the bottom so that the hot air comes out and that the cake remains in its form. Reverse the pan to shake the cake out.

8. While the cake is still warm, brush some Sambuca con Piacere on the cake. Beware of the magically tempting smell of the cake!

11. Let it sit for 5 minutes so that the cake absorbs the liquor. Meanwhile you can prepare the glaze. Then spread it over the cake.

12. Add some hazelnuts (or any type of nut) and then let the cake sit for at least 4 hours before serving it. It lets enough time for the alcohol to settle down.

Good luck and enjoy! 

Chocolate Cookie Bites

Chunky, buttery and overly sweet chocolate chip cookies are not really my thing. I was trying to find a way to finish the bag of chocolate chips I had at home. Then suddenly, as I was flipping through my compilation of recipes, I found a pilot recipe I used for cookies and then decided to make some changes and came up with that one. Since we are in the Nutcracker season, I realized that adding some nuts would enhance the chocolatey and the bitter taste of the cocoa powder. A great marriage between fragrance and bitterness! 

Ingredients:

170g All-purpose flour

80g chocolate chips

50g butter

2 tsp cocoa powder

30g sugar

½ tsp vanilla extract

1 egg

1 tsp baking soda

Hazelnut (or almond)

1.  Beat the butter and sugar in a mixer until it becomes fluffy.

2. Then add in the egg and the vanilla extract.

3. Meanwhile, melt the chocolate chips in the microwave. Then pour the melted chocolate in the mixture of butter, sugar and egg.

4. Once everything is incorporated, add in the dry ingredients – all-purpose flour, cocoa powder, and baking soda. Mix well.

5. Preheat the oven at 325°F and shape the cookie dough into drops of 1 inch. Then add a whole hazelnut, pistachio or almond on top of it.

6. Bake for 15 minutes. 

7. Cool down and then it is ready to serve.

Good luck and enjoy!