Classic Puff Pastry

Made another batch of mini sausage rolls today but with classic puff pastry. Compared to rough puff pastry (used in my 1st sausage roll experiment), the classic puff pastry requires more rolling, folding and turning and more resting time in between every 2 turns. I've found a pretty concise video for puff pastry here on YouTube.

See the difference between the sausage rolls made using rough puff pastry vs classic puff pastry!

Egg Tarts

I love egg tarts especially those with a flaky crust (think puff pastry). This egg tart however has a crumbly, biscuit-y texture which is just as delicious!

Recent Meals

Meals last week...

Savoury sausage rolls

I was inspired to make sausage rolls after seeing them here.

Most recipes I found online used frozen puff pastry which I wasn't too keen on. I was ambitious and wanted to create puff pastry from scratch! I found several blog posts that demonstrated the steps to a perfect pate feuilletee. Alas, the steps looked all too confusing. Moreover, I was planning on having sausage rolls for lunch and do not think I'll be able to make it in time if I followed all the tedious steps and required intervals of time for the dough to rest.

So I settled on a simple puff pastry recipe from Delia online.

Ingredients:

225gm All-purpose flour

pinch of salt

175gm butter (freeze for about 45mins)

some water

1 egg

Method:

1. Sift flour and salt into a mixing bowl.

2. Grate butter over the flour mixture. Dip the butter in a little flour once in a while to help grate better. Use a wooden spoon and mix butter and flour well so it resembles a crumbly texture.

3. Add enough cold water as necessary to form a dough, using hands to bring it together.

4. Wrap the dough in a cling wrap and refrigerate for 30mins.

5. After the resting period, roll the dough out into a thin sheet, rectangular shape (about 1/2cm) on a floured surface.

6. Divide into 3 long sheets and place sausage meat on the pastry sheet. Seal the edges with egg wash.

7. Brush the top with egg wash and slice into small bite size portions.

8. Bake in 220C oven for 25mins or until golden brown.

I used pre-seasoned sausage meat from the supermarket and mixed in some oregano herbs for the extra aroma.

The puff pastry was flaky and buttery and complements the savoury meat very well. Very addictive! I'm planning to bake some for our church pitch-in this weekend!

Go Hoosiers!!

The college football season just commenced last weekend and we will going to a match tomorrow. It will be our first football match ever and we are very excited about it! The Indiana Hoosiers will be taking on Virginia at the Memorial Stadium tomorrow.

In preparation for the match, we've also started to learn Indiana, Our Indiana fight song. Oh, and please clap your hands as you sing a-long!

Go Hoosiers!!

Braised Chicken in Soy Sauce

We love eating chicken drumlets and wings. This was a dinner that was quick and easy to prepare as it required minimal attention over the stove. Chicken was marinated ahead of time with pepper and a sprinkle of salt, dark & light soy sauce, oyster sauce and sesame oil. I don't usually cook following recipes. It's all by feel and taste. We did not have any mushrooms on hand but this would taste great with Chinese mushrooms and dried beancurd sticks too!

Served over warm rice and stir fried french beans.

62 degree egg

We first tasted this special egg at a little underground eatery called Hanamaru, in Tokyo many years ago. The egg was intriguing, it looked really simple like any ordinary egg yet when it was cracked open, the way it falls out of the shell is so mind boggling.

After doing a little research, I've found out that the term used to describe this type egg is the 62 degree egg, simply because it is cooked in water that is 62deg Celcius. A digital cooking thermometer is essential to ensure that the water is at the right temperature. Steep the egg for 45mins and this is what you will get. (We had ours with Japanese curry over rice)