Pan-fried Ham and cheese sandwich

Tags

brunch, butter, emmental, gruyere, ham, ham and cheese, ham and cheese sandwich, mortadella ham, quick meals, Snack, truffle mortadella ham

There’s now a recipe for a simple ham and cheese? Blasphemous!!! So it may be easy to slap some ham and cheese between two slices of bread and call it a ham and cheese. Indeed the basic definition of this sandwich is fulfilled.

I just took it a step further that’s all, with the specific use of a certain type of ham, cheese, bread and other additional fillings (cravings of the day) to make it taste a little more special.

Above Left: Mushroom pie (updated recipe for this to come soon!) topped with puff pastry)

Bottom right: Sinfully crispy ham and cheese

So without further ado, here are the basic ingredients:-

1. Thick sliced bread – I used milk loaf as I love its softer crumb, delicate buttery flavour and large surface area. Large sandwiches make for a more impressive presentation
2. Sliced ham – I’m not so fond of the traditional Blackforest ham used in a ham and cheese, so I replaced it with Mortadella ham (I was lucky to have some Truffle Mortadella ham so I made this a truffle themed ham and cheese). This option is entirely up to you, you’d know best your ham of preference after all.
3. Salted butter for spreading
4. Cheese – I used a mix of Emmental cheese and Gruyere. Although I have to say the cheese didn’t melt very well. I might try grating cheddar cheese and using that instead next time
5. Optional – dijon mustard, truffle oil, truffles. I suggest you don’t mix mustard and truffle products though.

Preparations coming along. Cheese and butter at room temperature before use.

Butter one side of the bread generously. Get the butter into every nook and cranny and leave no surface unbuttered!

Flip the bread over and start to assemble your sandwich. If you’re not using truffle, spread some Dijon mustard onto the unbuttered side of the bread before layering your cheese on top.

Then add the ham, and more layers of cheese. As you can see below I’ve also added a couple slices of truffle and a little truffle oil before the final cheese layer. Yes, the picture is not the right way around. Oops.

Top with the final slice of bread, and butter the outer surface of the bread. Both sides of the sandwich have to be buttered as you will be pan frying it.

Place the sandwich in a frying pan large enough to fit it and turn the heat on very low. Slowly fry until the entire surface of the bread is an even dark golden brown. Then carefully flip the sandwich on its other side to fry the remaining side to the desired dark golden brown. Its got to be crispy but not burnt.

Once done, slide onto a serving plate, slice it up and serve!

Trust me when I say pan frying the sandwich makes a world of difference. It is not enough to toast the bread and butter it before assembling.

Quick and easy, yet it does look pretty presentable!

Yoghurt and fruits

Tags

edible flowers, fruits, healthy, healthy living, plate decoration, yoghurt

Tamagoyaki / Dashimaki Tamago (Egg Roll)

Tags

bento, dashi, dashimaki tamago, Egg, egg roll, healthy, japanese, mirin, sake, tamago, tamagoyaki

The above picture is from my 2nd attempt at making tamagoyaki. Its a pretty common food in Japanese and Korean cuisine. Perhaps the only difference is that the Koreans don’t make it with sugar, dashi or sake. Of course, the Japanese tamagoyaki has both sweet and savory versions but I prefer the sweet version. While it is helpful to have a rectangular pan for this recipe, it is not necessary. You can make tamagoyaki using a normal frying pan.

For my first attempt, I made tamagoyaki using only 3 eggs and using a low fire. Not only did I have to wait a longer time for the egg to cook, but the egg roll came out kinda small, flat and not as fluffy. It was worse when it got cold and shrank further in size T___T. I poured in only enough egg to cover the surface for the first round but this was a mistake in my opinion.

In my 2nd attempt, I used 5 eggs on medium-high heat in a smaller and deeper frying pan. I poured in half the eggs for the first round of cooking and that made the egg roll fluffier. The end result? Thick egg rolls!!! ❤

Other than that generally the cooking methodology is still similar, which is why I’m including my first attempt here as well.

Ingredients

• 5 eggs
• 1-1.5 tbsp sugar
• 5 tbsp water or dashi
• 1 tsp salt (more or less depending on how salty the dashi is)
• 1 tsp mirin
• 1 tsp sake

You will need some kitchen paper for oiling the pan after each round of frying as well.

Instructions

Combine the dashi/water, sugar, mirin, salt and sake into a bowl. Mix thoroughly.

Break the eggs into the bowl with the dashi mixture and beat to just combine but do not overly beat it as we want some egg white bits in the tamagoyaki. Run a chopstick a few times through the mixture to ensure that the eggs are broken up and can be poured easily.

Keep a bowl of oil with kitchen towel next to the pan. You will use this to continuously oil the pan after each round of cooking.

Oil the pan and heat it up on medium-high flame.

Pour in half the eggs.

Scramble it a little. Fold over when the bottom is set enough to flip it over. Oil the exposed side of the pan, and then gently push the “omelette” to the side of the pan. Oil the rest of the pan before adding more egg. This time add just enough egg to cover the pan.

Above, I’ve already pushed the first layer of egg to the side and added the 2nd thinner layer. Lift the first “Omelette” so that the second layer of egg goes underneath to coat the entire pan. See those bubbles forming? Pop them!

Hehehe! Once this layer is more or less set, flip the thicker part onto the thin layer. This would create the “roll” layer. Again, oil the exposed part of the pan, push the egg to that side and oil the rest of the pan. Then add another layer of egg. Continue the process until all the egg is used up.

The last bit of egg… and you’re done! Brown the outsides if you like but don’t overdo it. If you want to shape the tamagoyaki into something more rectangular/oval you can make use of a sushi mat, but you have to shape it when it’s still hot.

Lastly, slice the tamagoyaki and serve 😉

I did not shape the tamagoyaki so the shape of it has a mind of its own T___T

I’m also going to add pictures from my first attempt. You can see that the heat is lower and the pan is bigger. So I “rolled” the egg several times and pushed the egg to the middle instead of the very end.

Waiting for the egg to cook before flipping the roll towards the left.

Above, after pushing the roll to the middle, I added another layer of egg. 

Continue the process…

Finally done.

Now to cut it!

As you can see, the roll isn’t very thick. Also, it shrank after it cooled and wasn’t as fluffy. Which is why I prefer the first method of cooking on medium high heat and in a smaller pan. Cooking half the eggs and scrambling them in the first round saves time and also makes the eggs fluffy. So try it yourself and see which way works well for you.

I’ll leave you with some youtube links on making tamagoyaki :-

Enjoy!

 

 

 

White truffle series 4: Garlic bread uni and salad

Tags

bread topped with uni, easy, garlic bread, garlic bread sea urchin, garlic bread topped with uni, garlic bread uni, Home Cooking, honey, honey lemon and mayo dressing, lemon, light, quick, sea urchin, truffle oil, truffle salad, uni, uni and truffle, white truffle, white truffle recipe, white truffles

This is another quick uni and white truffle combination that I love. Super easy to put together because you’re gonna be using ready-made garlic bread!

Just grab your favourite brand of garlic bread, pop it into the oven until its nice and hot and crispy on the outside and then top it off with a heaping mountain of golden orange sea urchin roe (make sure it is fresh uni). Finish it off with a sprinkling of chopped chives and fragrant slivers of white truffle. The garlic bread should have enough salt content, but you can add some fleur de sel on top if you wish.

Love ❤

And then there’s salad. I put together a salad of baby spinach leaves, radish, cherry tomatoes, a handful of dried blueberries, some ikura/salmon roe (personally I love ikura but you can leave this out if you think it’s weird), shaved parmigiano reggiano cheese and white truffle on the top. Dressed it lightly with my favourite dressing; a simple honey, lemon and mayo mixture. I can’t remember now if I added any truffle oil to this or not. Good time to try making this again when I get hold of some truffles!

WebRep

currentVote

noRating

noWeight

Pan fried eggplant dipped in egg

Tags

Chinese, easy meals, Egg, eggplant, healthy, pan fried eggplant dipped in egg, pan-fried, quick meals, side dish, Snack, truffle oil

Yes I know the picture above makes this post seem like it is about pot stickers instead of eggplant. I’m saving that post for another day. Today it is just the eggplant.

Ingredients

1 fat eggplant, sliced into equal thickness (around 0.5 – 0.7 cm would be good)

1 egg, beaten and seasoned with a pinch of salt and white pepper. If you like you can also drop a couple of drops of truffle oil into the egg mixture

2 tbsps Olive oil for frying

Instructions

1) Heat up the oil in a frying pan on medium high heat

2) Coat each side of the eggplant slices with egg before placing them in the pan.

3) Fry until the bottom down side of the eggplant slices turn golden brown, before flipping it to fry the other side

4) Pat off the excess oil or place the fried eggplant onto some paper towels.

5) Serve

Panda bear sandwich and chick

Tags

bento, boiled egg, cheese, healthy, Kyaraben, lunch, lunchbox, panda, panda sandwich, quick meal, Sandwich

Just a quick picture post 😉

Japanese style rice porridge

Tags

creamy porridge, Egg, healthy, japanese, nori, okayu, porridge, quick meals, rice, rice porridge, seaweed, spring onions, zosui

This is one of those quick fixes that can be done with just cooked rice and an egg. The other ingredients are cupboard ingredients (those that can be stored for a really long time), which is the beauty of this dish really.

If you’ve heard of the nabe (hot pots) that Japanese really love, you’d have also heard of them adding rice into the leftover stock once they’re done cooking the rest of the food. They then turn the rice into porridge, and thus, nothing is wasted.

And it is really delicious! I tried this “zosui” (the Japanese refer to thick rice porridge as zosui/okayu) in Hokkaido after a delicious kani-nabe ( I did NOT just swear at you lol!). Kani means crab, so what we had after the crab hotpot was some delicious stock. The waitress added more stock to it and then added precooked rice and let it simmer for a while before adding egg. It was the best porridge I’ve had!

I try to replicate it here the best I can without such expensive ingredients, crabs don’t come cheap in Singapore. I’ve come pretty close to it I think.

Ingredients (For 2 pax, or 1 hungry person)

• 1 cup cooked rice
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1/4 cup dashi (this is the second bottle from the left) – you can make it yourself, using konbu, anchovies and soy sauce but I found this more convenient
• 1 cup water
• 1 tbsp mirin
• 1 tbsp sake/cooking wine
• Handful of chopped spring onions for topping
• Handful of seaweed (nori) strips for topping

Cooking Instructions

Pour the dashi, water, mirin and wine into a pot and bring to a simmer.

Add the rice and cover the pot with a lid. Simmer on medium high heat until the rice softens. If you prefer really soft rice in the porridge, you could simmer it a little longer, just add some water so it doesnt dry up and stick to the bottom of the pot.

Once you’ve reached your desired consistency, turn off the heat and pour the egg into the centre of the porridge.

Work quickly and use the bottom of a ladle to stir the egg round and round until the egg is completely incorporated into the porridge.

You want the end result to look creamy. This is the end result of stirring the egg well. If you let the egg cook before you stir it in, it is going to look like an egg drop soup. Not like it tastes bad either, it just will not be as creamy as the picture below.

So the egg has to be quickly stirred in, in circles starting from the centre of the pot. If you were to stir it any way you wanted, the egg may end up streaky -___-

Then ladle it into a bowl and top with spring onions and seaweed.

So there it is, creamy Japanese porridge (obviously with zero dairy in it).

I love spring onions so I went overboard with it ;p

Tom Yum Goong

Tags

chilli padi, clear soup, fish sauce, galangal, kaffir leaves, lemongrass, lime, lime leaves, prawns, Soup, sour, South East Asian, spicy, thai, tom yum, tom yum goong, tomatoes

So I’ve always loved tom yum goong, but never tried making it myself. So when I saw a tom yum recipe on the high heel gourmet’s blog (http://highheelgourmet.com/2013/04/25/tom-yum-goong/) , I was really motivated to make it myself! Hers looks delicious and authentic.

I then made tom yum goong on two occasions following her recipe and found that its not only tasty but really healthy as well! Just look at the ingredients:-

Attempt 1: (No coconut milk used, smaller glass prawns and forgot to include the milk and prawns into the picture)Attempt no. 2: (With tiger prawns and coconut milk and a couple of shallots)

Ingredients (for two), adapted from: http://highheelgourmet.com/2013/04/25/tom-yum-goong/

4 full stalks of lemongrass (I used 5… or more depending on whether I wanted to finish em all)

5-6 Kaffir lime leaves

Galangal, peeled and sliced thinly, 4-5 pieces (for a 1.5 inch diameter knob of galangal), or 7-8 for a smaller knob – I think its a good idea to smash it a little, to release the flavour and smell

Shrimp or prawns with head and shell – I might have used 300g cuz there’s no such thing as too many prawns *Greedy*

1 can of Straw Mushrooms, these variety of mushrooms are the best kind for tom yum in my opinion

3-4 limes

Fish sauce  2 tablespoons

6 cups of liquid in total ; Water/soup stock/coconut milk with 1 cup in reserve. I used 1 young coconut which gave me 2 cups of coconut milk which I find essential as an ingredient in tom yum soup. Without coconut milk I feel like there’s something missing and it doesnt turn out as aromatic

Salt, as needed (Prob 2-3 tsps according to your taste)

Spring onions, cut about 1/4” long, 2 tablespoons

The green parts of the spring onion, 5-6 “leaves” for tying the bouquet garni if you don’t have a string designated for cooking

Cilantro, cut about 1/2” long, (saving the top leaves for garnish) 2 tablespoons

5-6 pods of chilli padi/birds eye chillies

Optional ingredients

Nam Phrik Pao  3-4 teaspoons (I didn’t use this, but perhaps I should have!)

Milk   1/2 cup (I used 3-4 tbsps when I thought the chilli was going to kill me from the level of spiciness…it helped to neutralize it a little)

Tomatoes  2-4 medium size, quartered (I used about 2)

Young coconut flesh (Unfortunately I ate mine so it never made it in to the soup)

Rock sugar  2-4 crystals (Just to eliminate the slightly unpalatable taste from the herbs, not enough to make the taste sweeter)

Cooking Instruction

1) For big prawns like the ones I’m using here, peel them, leaving the heads intact. De-vein the prawns and keep all the shells.

If you are using shrimp (smaller-sized prawns), pull the heads off alongside the shells and save them, also then deveining them. Set them aside.

2) Boil the 6 cups of liquid before adding the shrimp/prawn shells and shallots, and over the course of cooking, add water or stock as needed.

3) Meanwhile, boil another pot of water. This is where you’ll blanch your spring onion leaves so that it becomes malleable and you will be able to tie the bouquet garni with it. Blanch until soft then remove immediately.

4. Crush the lemongrass along the stalks and slice them lengthwise. Peel the galangal and slice it thinly. Tear the kaffir lime leaves towards the main stem, leaving the stem intact to keep them attached. Lay the blanched spring onions as below and place half the lemongrass on top, followed by kaffir leaves, galangal, more kaffir leaves and the rest of the lemongrass. Tie all of them into a bouquet garni so it doesn’t float all over in your soup.

When you’re done, cut the bundle down the middle (please make sure that both sides are equally secured by the spring onions) so it fits into your pot.

5) Place the bouquet garni into the pot and bring to a boil again, then lower the heat and let it simmer for another 10 minutes.

5) Season the soup. The high heel gourmet (a.k.a. Miranti) says that first we must get the salty aspect right. First, add the fish sauce, followed by some salt. When you’re happy with the saltiness, drop the rock sugar into the pot (Always handy to have some crushed ones ready at hand, its easier to apportion and cook). The rock sugar is meant to offset the bitter taste of the herbs. Then you taste the soup again to ascertain if more salt is needed.

6) Take out the shrimp shells and leave the bouquet garni.

7) Increase the heat to high again. Add the mushrooms, tomatoes, young coconut flesh if you have it, and the prawns/shrimp.

If you want your Tom Yum to be quite hot and spicy, you can add chilies right now, but if you want it somewhat spicy but not over the top, you add them later once its done boiling.

8) Let it come back to a boil, then turn off the heat right away. At this stage you can add the Nam Phrik Pao, crushed chilies, lime juice, and milk if you like.

9) Garnish with green onion, a slice of lime and cilantro.

It was yummy and really simple to make!

Much thanks to the high heel gourmet for her meticulous recipe and cooking instructions (though I’m afraid I might have deviated here and there and not done her much justice):

http://highheelgourmet.com/2013/04/25/tom-yum-goong/

Coming up soon: Tom Yum Goong

Tags

clear soup, fish sauce, galangal, healthy, kaffir leaves, lemongrass, prawns, Soup, sour, South East Asian, spicy, thai, tom yum, tom yum goong, tomato, tomyum

Adapted from High Heel Gourmet’s recipe. Hers is the real deal though 😉

http://highheelgourmet.com/2013/04/25/tom-yum-goong/

Truffle part 7: Mushroom, Egg & Cheese Pastry with truffles and Salad with lemon mayo honey dressing

Tags

almonds, appetizer, brunch, cheddar, cheese, Egg, egg and cheese pastry, egg and cheese pastry with truffles, healthy, light meals, lunch, mushrooms, pastry, Puff pastry, salad, Snack, starter, truffle oil, truffles

Almost finished with the truffle series! Here I made two simple dishes with the truffles, a puff pastry and a salad. Really easy and yummy stuff.

Puff Pastry Ingredients (for 1 pax)

1. A quarter of ready made puff pastry (I used Jus-rol, the 500g packet)
2. Grate a good handful of your favourite cheese (I used cheddar)
3. Sliced mushrooms (about 3 fresh swiss brown mushrooms)
4. 1 teaspoon of truffle oil
5. 1 egg
6. 1 egg white to glaze
7. Black pepper and salt

Salad Ingredients (for 1-2 pax depending on how greedy)

1. 7-8 almonds sliced (If you can buy them pre sliced, that’s even better
2. Handful of cranberries
3. Juice and rind from half a yellow lemon (omit the rind if you don’t like it)
4. 3 tbsp mayo
5. 1-2 tbsp honey
6. Enough salad leaves for 1-2 pax

Instructions

1. Roll out the ready made pastry into a square and trim off the sides so that it’s nice and neat. 
2. Preheat the oven to 220°C (200°C for fan assisted ovens). You should follow the instructions printed on the wrapping, oven temperatures and timings may differ.
3. Cut a little more of the ready made pastry and roll it out to make 4 strips, you will need to place each strip at the edge of the pastry square so it holds the ingredients (and egg) in.
4. Arrange the cheese and mushrooms in the pastry, leaving space in the middle. The egg will be added here later on. In the meantime, brush the pastry with the egg white for that golden brown colour
5. Bake the pastry for about 12 minutes (this would depend on the total time you need to bake the pastry. If you need to bake it for 20 minutes, add the egg 3-4 minutes before completion). If I remember correctly I baked it for 15 minutes, so I slid the egg into the middle after 12 minutes. You can add more cheese around the egg after that if you wish. Then drizzle the truffle oil over the pastry.
6. Once the pastry is golden brown and the egg is cooked, remove from oven.

1. While the pastry is cooking, wash and drain the salad leaves, slice the almonds and fry them til golden in color. Pat the excess oil off almonds with a kitchen towel and set aside.
2. Mix the lemon juice and rind, mayo and honey together in a separate bowl.
3. Place salad leaves in a salad bowl and toss with the honey lemon and mayo mixture. Add cranberries, sliced almonds and shave some of that black truffle on top. Serve.
4. Season pastry with black pepper (and, if you chose a mild, not-so-salty cheese, some salt) and add some truffle shavings. Eat!

You can add other things to your salad, I added cherry tomatoes to mine.

If you like your egg less cooked then just cook it for 1.5-2 minutes before removing from the oven. For me, as long as the whites are cooked I’m all good.