Spinach Casserole

Casserole or bake is very popular here in America. During morning tea at church, casseroles often make their appearances on the food line. The two variations that I usually see are potato casserole and spinach casserole.

Taken from Wikipedia
A casserole, from the French for "saucepan",^[1] is a large, deep dish used both in the oven and as a serving vessel. The word casserole is also used for the food cooked and served in such a vessel, with the cookware itself called a casserole dish orcasserole pan. In British English, this type of dish is frequently also called a bake, coinciding with the cooking technique used to cook casseroles.


The spinach casserole is something like a quiche, however without the pastry crust. I like to think of it as more of a frittata, an egg-based dish with ingredients thrown in, cooked on the stove and finished off in the oven by baking or grilling.

The casserole that I made was fuss free and convenient. You can throw everything together in under 5mins and the rest of the work is done by the oven.

Spinach Casserole

1 box (6 oz) frozen spinach, thawed 

4 eggs

1 cup milk

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1 pkt (6 oz) shredded cheese (I used Swiss cheese)

1 tsp salt
a dash of black pepper
a dash of worcestershire sauce


Method
1. Pre-heat oven to 176 deg C / 350F.
2. Squeeze off excess moisture from spinach with your hands.
3. In a bowl, beat eggs and add in milk, flour, black pepper, salt & worcestershire sauce. Mix well.
4. Add in half packet of the shredded cheese. Mix well.
5. Add in spinach. Mix well.
6. Pour mixture into an oven-proof baking dish. Top with remaining shredded cheese.
7. Bake in the oven for 45mins and turn to grill/broil mode in the last 5mins.
8. Test with skewer or knife to check for doneness. If it comes out clean, it is ready!

Spiral Curry Puff

Curry puff is one of my favourite snack back home in Singapore. There is an Old Chang Kee stall opposite my office and I will often buy a curry puff on my way back after lunch, just in case I get hungry in the mid-afternoon.

Recently, my cravings got the better of me and I started searching online for curry puff recipes, especially those with a spiral pastry shell, those similar to A1 style.

This was the result with the first recipe that I tried. It was a failure as the pastry was hard and the fillings were too dry. I think it had to do with the fact that I fried the puffs for too long. Or it could be the way I worked the water dough as I could feel that the dough was a little hard when I rolled it out (the recipe asked for an egg to be used for the water dough and I'm not sure if this was another contributing factor).

I tried another recipe the next day as I had leftover fillings and this time round, I managed to get the texture and taste that I wanted. The recipe's a keeper! This recipe yields 30pcs of small curry puffs.

Water Dough
400gm all-purpose flour (sifted)
225ml water
1/4 tsp salt
2 tablespoon unsalted butter

- Add salt to the flour and blend in the butter with a pastry blender.
- Add water gradually and mix well. Work till the dough forms into a ball and is soft, pliable and non-sticky.
- Divide dough into two balls and wrap individually with cling wrap and leave aside. Work on oil dough now.

Oil Dough
200gm all-purpose flour (sifted)
150gm unsalted butter (cubed)

- Blend butter into flour with pastry blender until it resembles coarse sand.
- Form dough into a ball and divide into two.

Assembling the pastry

- Take one ball of the water dough and flatten it slightly with hands. Place a ball of oil dough on it and wrap it up.
- Roll out the dough into an oblong shape on a floured surface.
- Make 2 folds on the dough, one going on top of the other. Roll it out again.
- Roll up the dough into swiss roll style.
- Cut dough into 15 round pieces of approximately 1cm thick.
- Roll each piece into a circular shape and place filling in the middle. Try not to over fill as it may break the pastry.
- Repeat the steps above with the remaining water and oil dough.

- Fold over and make pleats to seal.

Finished product! Deep fry until it starts to turn light brown. Drain on paper towel to remove excess oil.

I made a tray of 30 curry puffs for deep frying next week. Hope they will turn out well!

Here's a video of me pleating the curry puffs.

Myulchi Bokkeum - Korean Banchan

The packet of mini anchovies have been sitting in my fridge for almost 5 months and was hardly used.

So today, I decided to prepare myulchi bokkeum, a side dish (banchan) that is commonly served in most Korean restaurants.

This was very easy and quick to prepare. I followed the recipe from here.

We had this with rice and seaweed and it was delicious.

Winter Holiday 2011

It has been a while since I last blogged. We've been doing lots of traveling, taking all opportunities to visit places in the US.

During the recent winter break, we managed to squeeze in two separate trips in the short span of 3 weeks. The first one was a road trip to Kentucky, Tennessee and St Louis (which I will try to cover in a separate post) and just before the New Year, we visited Niagara Falls, New York City and made a day trip to Washington D.C.

I shall not give boring details of what we ate, where we visited etc. Instead, I would like to share some photos that were taken during the trip. Enjoy!

After spending two nights in Niagara Falls, we made our way via the Amtrak to NYC on New Year's Eve. What is New Year's Eve in NYC without participating in the famous ball drop in Times Square? We braved the crowd and the cold and managed to make our way there. We stood for 6 solid hours with more than 1 million spectators, waiting for the clock to strike 12!

We visited many attractions and ate a lot in NYC! These were just the tip of the iceberg of what we ate, the famous Katz deli Pastrami Sandwich & Totto Ramen which we queued for almost 2hrs, starting at 5pm.

While in NYC, we also did a side trip to Washington D.C We took a package with Viator for a one-day trip to the capital of USA.

It was indeed a very enjoyable and memorable trip!

Wok Fried Char Siew

Prepared wok fried char siew to go with wanton noodles for lunch today.

I used two strips of pork loin for the char siew. It would be better if pork belly is used but I didn't find any at the supermarket. To prepare the char siew, I seasoned it with dark soy sauce, light sauce soy, oyster sauce and sugar (approximate amount, more sugar if a sweeter taste is desired). Left it to marinate for two days in the fridge. Of course, the easier way will be to season it with store bought char siew sauce.

To cook it, first boil some water (i used about 500ml) in a wok and place the pork in it. Cook till water reduces and gravy becomes thick. Continue to pan fry in the wok until both sides are browned.

Black Friday 2011

This is the first time we participated in Black Friday Shopping! We've heard so much about Black Friday but did not know what the big deal was prior to this. We only knew that it is the day where people spend a lot on shopping, be in online or in the stores.

My fun began one week b4 Thanksgiving when Lock & Lock had a pre-Black Friday Sale. Everything in their online store was at 50% off, including items that were already on sale. I jumped at the opportunity to add a few more Lock & Lock's to my lunch box collection. These were the items that I bought:

- a rectangular 3 piece set with bag (good for packing sandwiches and snacks on our road trips)

- a square food container with divider

Looking forward to receiving the items. Should be arriving next week!

We scored many other great deals at the Premium Outlets as well as we were in Orlando during the Thanksgiving break.

Some of our best buys were a Men's Burberry London Pea Coat for less than $200, an Abercrombie & Fitch Belt for $9 and a Kate Spade tote for $100! It was indeed a very fun night of shopping for us, experiencing the shopping madness that we had previously read about on the Internet. We were out shopping from 10pm till 8am the next morning - a shopping marathon!

Teochew Porridge

Teochew porridge for lunch today:

- stir fry vege with baby anchovies

- omelette with chinese sausage

- preserved radish (store bought, comes in a vacuum pack)

- braised pork hocks