Muffin Monday - Carrot Spice Muffins

I am so busy doing nothing... that the idea of doing anything - which as you know, always leads to something - cuts into the nothing and then forces me to have to drop everything.

~ Jerry Seinfeld

I've always had a weakness for moist carrot cake, packed to the brim with grated carrots, nuts and dried fruits and topped with the most decadent cream cheese frosting. So you can imagine how much I was looking forward to making this week's Muffin Monday recipe, Carrot Spice Muffins. Our host, Anuradha of Baker Street blog specified that this was to be a healthy muffin, so I reluctantly tossed out the evil frosting idea and ended up with a healthier topping instead.

International Incident Party - Asparagus Fortress Terrine

I may have been waiting my whole life to make a terrine like this. As a matter of fact, I made it the day after Penny (Jeroxie.com) announced the International Incident Party theme for this month, which is Terrine. I had never really understood the hype surrounding this layered dish but couldn't wait any longer to create it and see for myself. It was a very long time ago that I ate my last terrine...was it in France? I am so ancient now, and I really can't remember.

So anyway, I dreamt about my terrine. That was how much it wouldn't leave me alone the first night. When I woke up, I immediately scribbled everything down on a scrap piece of paper. I wanted to hold on to the details and somehow turn it into something tangible, edible even, for this party. Luckily, it wasn't a convoluted series of images I ended up with because that's the way dreams oftentimes occur. Otherwise, my terrine would look some kind of bizarre....although, now that I think about it, my bizarre may be different from yours :-).

International Incident Party: Somewhere Over The Rainbow...

It seemed that I blinked and it's already December. Time to celebrate our greatest moments over the year but more importantly, time for another International Incident Party! Penny of Jeroxie.com as our lovely host has wisely pronounced 'Colour' a.k.a. 'Color' as the theme of this month's party. What better way to see the year out than with a big bang, an explosion of culinary colors? 

In the six months since I've embarked on this blogging journey (I'm a mere baby in the blogosphere!), my kitchen has seen its fair share of rainbow-like dishes gracing its countertop and table. I certainly like to play with the most vibrant colors naturally available - reds, greens, yellows - but there is one oddity and that is my predilection for purple and pink. Strange really, because I'm not terribly feminine in outlook or appearance (in fact, I often imagine myself as a tattoed-up Jesse James with boobies and a black leather apron, real baad, oh yeah!). All this time, my poor brain may possibly be rebelling against this constant desire to be a biker-foodie chick, resulting in recipes that manifest themselves as the girliest-looking concoctions, as you can witness below:  

1. Purple Somen Noodles in Capsicum Bowl

2. Amazing Technicolor Gratin

3. Red Dragonfruit Granita

4. Cashew Crusted Dragonfruit Hearts and Matcha Cheesecake

5. Nectarine, Pistachio and Grape Jelly

6. Tamarind Pasta with Muscovado Chilli Sauce

7. Green Tea Rolls with Purple Sweet Potato Filling

8. Fruity Il Gianfornaio

Anyway, back to this party. I was so excited to showcase more colors in my food that I ended up preparing a three-course meal bursting with flavors and vibrancy. I suggest you put your sunglasses on now as it's going to get crazy-bright in here ;-).

Appetizer: Colorific Salad-in-a-Sushi 

A refeshing, colorful salad presented in sushi form! Slivers of red cabbage, cucumber, carrot, beetroot, yellow pepper and mango are encased in fried egg-sheets, which are again rolled within nori sheets. If you can roll sushi, you can definitely roll these. They're slightly larger versions of regular sushi but they look like pyschedelic babes on a plate! My heart hurt to have to eat these, but hey, someone's got to do it...

Main course: Mother-in-Law's Tongue Pasta (Lingua di Suocera)

I've been intrigued with these unbelievably stunning noodles for a while but when I googled it up, there was no information on how to actually make it. For now, it seems that the secret recipe and technique for producing this pasta will remain with the Marella family in Puglia, Italy who makes these by hand! Never one to give up, I bravely attempted my own version of Lingua di Suocera. However let me just put on record that my real-life mother-in-law's tongue was not the inspiration for this creation (in fact, I'd be worried if hers took on these hues!).

I experimented with 6 colors derived from carrot (orange), spinach (green), black sesame (black), blueberry jam! (blue), turmeric powder (yellow) and cocoa powder (brown), and left one plain. It was pretty tedious work lining up the linguine-sized noodles lengthwise against one another before rolling them flat to seal - and of course, they never do in the exact way you want them to - then trimming off the edges to form a wide, flat, stripey, colorful noodle.

It was a warm afternoon when I made this, and after painstakingly crafting a whole set of just 5 noodles, I gave up and  jumped into the pool with the kids. The rest of the linguine was not wasted though, they were heaped together and cooked into a gorgeous multicolored pasta dish that my young housemates devoured after their swim. Luckily, I remembered to take a snapshot before it was all gone!

But here's the real star of the party, my version of Mother-in-Law's Tongue pasta accompanied by red cabbage, garlic and coriander (cilantro) sauteed in butter. Those Italians have totally got it sussed out, they know exactly what it takes to make food that take your breath away. 

  

 

Hmm, I could stare at this the whole day.... if only I wasn't so hungry.

Dessert: Sweet Potato and Coconut Milk Agar

This purplelicious layered agar is flavored with purple and orange sweet potatoes and coconut milk, two ingredients that go extremely well together. The topmost layer contains thin strands of purple sweet potatoes (achieved using a mandoline) encased in sweetened clear agar. For the opaque sweet potato layers, the potatoes are first steamed and then blended with hot agar liquid to form a puree. Despite its carb contents, this pretty layered dessert makes for a delicious and surprisingly light finisher!

I had fun creating these dishes, it felt as if the rainbow had somehow shone its way into my kitchen and inspired me to look closer at its spectrum for ways to brighten up the plain old plate. Now before you come here looking for that pot of gold, check out what colorful goodies the other participants came up with by clicking on the thumbnails below. 

In the interest of maintaining a fun and light International Incident Party atmosphere, all recipes featured here will be posted separately in the coming few days. We wouldn't want to derive yawns resulting from a long-drawn out post now, do we? Haha, no we so wouldn't.

Don't forget to put some (natural) color in your lives and on your plates. Thanks for reading, and yes, you can take those sunglasses off now!

Bruce Lee and the Amazing Technicolor Gratin

Update: This gratin made the Top 9 on Foodbuzz. Thank you for all the love-buzzes and more importantly, for stopping by with your kindest words about the loss of our Bruce Lee. I have the best friends, readers and followers!

The plan was to make this gratin completely potato-filled, but I couldn't get hold of regular (orange) sweet potatoes so I added carrots instead. Then the dilemma came up as to whether I should call this a potato gratin because of the presence of the carrots. Well, at least I can call it pretty, yes, that's it... a pretty, colorful sidekick to any entrée on a plate.

When I made this, I also ran out of fresh herbs (yes, it was one of those blaaah, bland days in the pantry), but if I'd had some, I would've sprinkled oregano or thyme along with the cheese and imagined this creamy gratin would've tasted even better than it already did.

Anyway, I do have to warn you that the hardest part about making this dish is the slicing involved. If you don't have a mandoline and you plan to make this, perhaps now's the time to invest in one! The vegetables have to be thin enough for the layers to sit together comfortably and elegantly. I alternated rows of carrots, regular potatoes and purple sweet potatoes until I reached the end of the baking pan. The pieces of chopped garlic at the bottom of the dish, hidden underneath all the potatoes, carrots, cream and cheese, provided the lovely savory flavor.

As soon as the dish came out of the oven, it dawned on me that the color of the purple sweet potatoes had surrepticiously seeped out and tainted the whole gratin slightly lilac. Oh well, it was still pretty and more importantly, tasted pretty darn good!

I know that the kids in this house will read this blog someday and because of that, I wanted to give a special mention of our beautiful, white cat. He died last night after a bout of illness, leaving the kids (and adults) distraught. He had only been with us for a little less than six months but even when we'd first brought him into our household, he was already a sickly little fellow. The kids adored him completely and on his good days, he eagerly awaited their return from school so they could play with him. Other than that, he was my constant companion in the kitchen, curling up quietly in the warmest spot on the rug. He was such a well-behaved cat, a complete anomaly in our experience with felines so far.

We named him Bruce Lee, perhaps subconciously wishing that he would be as strong as his superstar namesake. Like his namesake though, his passing was untimely. A million trips (it was a lot) to the vet couldn't fix what was raging inside his tiny broken body and when he finally took his last breath, he was wrapped in warm blankets, ironically, in the kitchen. This morning we buried Bruce Lee in our garden, under the shade of one of our many fruit trees. Before they left for school, the children picked some colorful tropical flowers to place carefully upon his burial site.

The house suddenly seems so quiet today. Yes, we're totally missing him.

Our beautiful Bruce Lee, RIP.

Technicolor Gratin with Potatoes, Carrots and Purple Sweet Potatoes
Serves: 4 to 6 people
Ingredients:
3 garlic cloves, peeled and halved
Unsalted butter, for baking dish
1 cup (240 ml) whole milk
1 cup (240 ml) heavy cream
2 medium potatoes, peeled and sliced finely with a mandoline
1 large purple sweet potato, peeled and sliced finely with a mandoline
1 large carrot, peeled and sliced finely with a mandoline
Sea salt and pepper
Pinch of ground nutmeg
Handful of shredded Parmesan cheese

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/gas 6. Butter the inside of an ovenproof dish, around 12 x 8.5-inch, and at least 6cms deep. Rub dish with 2 halves of one garlic clove. Dice the garlic and place them at the bottom of the dish; set aside.

2. In a pot, heat the milk and heavy cream. Add the pinch of nutmeg and remaining garlic, which has been finely diced. Bring to a simmer and then turn off the heat.

3. Tightly arrange the potato and carrot slices inside the dish, alternating between 1 layer of potatoes, purple sweet potatoes and carrot. Repeat until you run out of ingredients.

4. Pour the milk/cream batter over the vegetables – mixture should cover the vegetables. Season with sea salt and pepper. Top with the grated Parmesan cheese.

5. Bake the gratin for 50 minutes to 1 hour, or until the top is a golden color. When the mixture bubbles while it is being baked, purple color will seep from the purple sweet potatos and the gratin will take on a lilac hue. Serve warm as a side dish.

Savory Chocolate Curry Puffs With Purple Sweet Potato Filling

Man's mind consists of Dao-mind and human-mind, which are all given by God. Everything being perfect and perfect in Dao-mind, nothing needs to depend on outside oneself or search for anything. Dao-mind is like a mirror which reflects God's love and wisdom.

An excerpt from Confucianism and Meditation

 

Everything about the title of this dish sounds wrong, doesn't it? Let's see... savory + chocolate + curry + sweet potato. Conflicting yet harmonious. Despite the seeming clash of flavors, these curry puffs turned out well and tasted mmm.... slightly better than well ;-). Confusion or Confucianism, which is it really?

 

Anyway, I was inspired to come up with these spiral curry puffs recipe after reading this post on Sweet Potato and Black Bean Empanadas by the lovely Victoria of Mission: Food, where nothing is impossible. Yes, correctly so, my dear. Empanadas in my neck of the woods are called curry puffs, because the filling is frequently made of curried meat or vegetables, or even both.

 

Sorry to disappoint, but here comes the disclaimer. The only chocolate you'll find in these flaky puffs are in the color of the pastry dough attributed to the cocoa powder I added to it. The spiral effect was made using two types of dough, oil dough and water dough. Their properties when cooked are different, thereby separating the doughs, lifting the spirals and making the pastry light and flaky. I've collated a series of photos below to show you how to create these pretty spirals. Even if you make the two types of dough in plain or the same color, the concentric circles will still be visible. How cool is that? I credit the Thais for popularizing this technique to make their curry puffs, and by golly, they do it extremely well!  

My fillling, however, was my own invention and contained purple sweet potato (my favorite!), carrots and long beans picked from my mother's garden over the weekend. All these lovely ingredients were coated in a curry paste made from scratch. I must tell you that one of the loveliest smells on earth is the smell of freshly ground curry sizzling in a hot pan... it's like breathing in the air over at spice heaven. Mine was probably the easiest curry paste to make, just place all the spices in a grinder, press the 'on' button and voila! I only used 7 easily-available spices, it was a breeze really. 

 Ingredients for my curry paste

 Vegetable filling. Colorful enough for you?

My mother has been trying to get me to make these spiral puffs for years, but my inner teenager has always resisted. What's wrong with the usual, non-spiral curry puffs anyway? It took me until today when I actually made these to realise that the years of culinary defiance are really pointless, and honestly, a great loss on my part. I really did enjoy the process of enveloping dough within dough, then rolling, turning and rolling the dough again to produce the unusual, swirling patterns on the crust. Although, I'm not sure what my mother would say about a chocolate curry puff... Ah well, that teenager will always be a part of me. ;-)

 

 

Okay, time for the taste test. Filling was incredible, thanks to the aromatic homemade curry. Crust bore no distinct chocolatey taste and was delightfully light and flaky, but I suppose if it was a bit more flaky, the puffs would've been even better. The water dough looked a tad too dry to me (damn that cocoa powder), so perhaps reducing the amount of cocoa used would improve the consistency. Yes, yes I know. I'm a cursed perfectionist. But I don't apologize for it if I can come up with bizarre yet delicious curry puffs as this!

Flaky and flakier!

  

Savory Chocolate Curry Puffs With Purple Sweet Potato Filling
Makes: 16
Ingredients:
Water Dough
2 cups plain flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons caster sugar
1/4 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder
100 ml vegetable oil
120ml water cold water

Oil Dough
1 cup flour
80ml vegetable oil

1 egg, beaten lightly for glazing

Filling
Curry paste:
1 onion chopped
3-4 cloves garlic
1/2 inch piece ginger
1small stick cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon coriander
1/2 teaspoon chilli powder
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
2 cloves
1 cardamom
5-6 cashew nuts
4 tablespoons of oil
1 cup tomato puree

Vegetables:
300g purple sweet potato, peeled and diced
5 Chinese long beans, sliced into 1/4 inch pieces
1 large carrot, peeled and diced

Method:
For the Filling:

Grind all the dry ingredients with the onion, garlic and ginger into a fine paste in a grinder. Heat a thick pan and add 4 tablespoons of oil, fry the paste on medium heat, stirring constantly until aromatic and the paste leaves the sides of the pan. Then add the tomato puree, mix and cook for a minute.

Add the sliced potatoes, carrot and long beans to the curry mixture. Simmer under low heat for about 15 minutes, until the liquid reduces and the vegetables are softened. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Leave to cool completely before using this filling. You can also leave this overnight in the refrigerator for use the following day, the mixture will be thickened and easier to handle.

For the Pastry:

Water Dough:

Place flour, sugar, salt, cocoa powder and oil in a bowl and mix with your hands until it resembles breadcrumbs. Slowly add the cold water, press together and knead lightly into a smooth ball of dough. Cling wrap the dough and refrigerate for 20 minutes.

Oil Dough:

Place flour in the mixer bowl. Add oil and mix with your hands until it forms a soft dough. Shape into a smooth ball, cling wrap and chill dough for 20 minutes to firm it up.

To form spirals:

Divide the water dough into 8 equal pieces, do the same with the oil dough.

Flatten the water dough into a circle and wrap it around the ball of oil dough, pinching the edges together at the top to seal.

Place the wrapped dough on the worktop and press down with the palms to flatten it. Using a rolling pin, roll dough out to a rectangular shape.

Working from the short end, roll up tightly into a Swiss roll. Flatten this cylinder again and roll out pastry to a rectangle. Roll from the short side into a Swiss roll (in other words, do this rolling process twice). Cut roll into 2 pieces of about 1 inch/2 cm thick (altogether you will have 16 pieces of sliced dough). Flatten and roll out this piece of dough on the cut side and you will see the spiral pattern.

To fill the spiral dough:

Take a flattened piece of dough and roll into a circle. Place a tablespoon of filling in the centre.

Brush the edge with water and fold pastry into half, press the edges together to seal and pinch with thumb and forefinger to crimp the edges.

Place each finished puff on the tray, cover with a sheet of cling wrap, while you fill the remaining dough. Refrigerate until firm.

To bake:

Preheat the oven to 200C. Brush the top and crimped edges of the curry puffs with the beaten egg, and bake for 15-20 minutes, until the white parts of the crust are golden brown. Serve warm.

Sexy Sushi And An Award

Tell me honestly now, if you were a food item, wouldn't you want to date these hot-looking sushi? Look past their understated sex appeal, and you'll find that everything about them is healthy, wholesome and yes, even vegan. Purple sweet potato (oooh!), carrot and spring onions are snugly wrapped around with tasty organic brown rice and flavorful Nori. Looking at these rolls, I just wanted to break into song... ~Oh My Gosh....there's so many ways to love you!~  (To be sung to Usher's O.M.G., btw).

How to make these and impress your green-eyed family and friends? It's not nearly as stressful as you may imagine. Here's a simple pic-tutorial, followed by the recipe:

 The filling - spring onion leaves, purple sweet potatoes and carrot strips

 The stuff holding it all in - organic brown rice (+ nori sheets, of course)

 Line up filling ingredients neatly at one end

 Roll, roll, roll (you can see I forgot to lay down the nori here!)

 Slice and here you have it, the delectable Ms. Sushi

This is only my second time using brown rice in a recipe and also the second time that I've ever attempted  to roll sushi. Second time? Yep, if you would like to check out my 'virgin' brown rice and sushi attempts, click on the links below: 

Spicy Thai Red-Brown Rice with Eggplant and Apples, 

Black Rice Sushi Rolls.

Brown Rice Sushi with Purple Sweet Potato, Carrot and Spring Onion Filling

Makes: 2 sushi rolls

Ingredients:
1 cup brown rice
2 cups water
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 medium purple sweet potato, cut into strips and steamed

1/2 a medium carrot, sliced into long strips and steamed
2 spring onions, use the leafy, green part only
2 Nori sheets (dried seaweed)
salt and pepper, to taste

Method:
1. Wash the brown rice in water, draining the water several times, then boil in 2 cups of water. You can cook this either on a stove or in a rice cooker, until the rice is fluffy and soft.
2. Once cooked, stir in 2 tablespoons of rice vinegar and a pinch of salt and ground black pepper. The vinegar helps bind the rice grains together to make it easier to roll. Leave to cool.
3. Prepare the vegetable fillings: Steam the slices of purple sweet potatoes and carrot for about 15-30 minutes until softened. Leave these to cool outside the steamer.
4. To assemble, spoon the cooled brown rice it onto a nori sheet placed on top of a bamboo rolling mat. Flatten with the back of a spoon following the shape of the nori sheet. Leave 1 cm of nori on one edge without any rice. If you don't have a proper rolling mat, use aluminium foil lined with cling film and place your ingredients to be rolled on the film instead.
5. Line up your fillings in 3 straight lines, then start to roll forward from the end nearest to you (where the rice is closest to the edge). Make sure you press firmly along the length of the rolling mat so the rice and filling can spread a little to the opened ends. Seal the roll by moistening the unfilled nori end with a bit of water.
6. Slice the roll across about ½ inch thick with a sharp, wet knife. Dip the blade in water to moisten it in between cuts. Serve with soy sauce and wasabi dip.

AWARD

Wait! I'm not finished yet.... A few days ago, I received this Lovely Blog Award from the cutest bird in the food blogging universe, Chef Gerald a.k.a. Jerry at Bistro Gerard. Yes, did you know that even parrots have their own blogs nowadays and this ninja birdie can cook up truly ah-mazing recipes? Although it can't be easy typing with those well-manicured claws (with only three fingers on each) and I suspect his Mummy, Anca, must help a lot in the keyboarding department. I may be wrong, so please correct me if I am, Chef and please, don't take this award away because I said something about your typing! Thank you for reading my posts all this time and for sending this award my way.

It's always a pleasant surprise to get some recognition from fellow bloggers either through their comments, emails, tweets and through awards like these. And quite wonderful to know that they weren't all from my mother either (signing in under the guise of various bloggers)! Now, it's time for me to "share the love" by passing this award on to 15 other bloggers whose posts I find simply amazing and make me want to wake up every morning to read. If you're smart, you'll want to check them out too!

1. Jennifurla @ Indigo's Sugar Spectrum
2. Michael @ Me, My Food and I
3. Margaret @ Savory Sweet Living
4. Krystle @ Quaypo Cooks
5. Carolyn @ All Day I Dream About Food
6. Roxan @ Kitchen Meditation
7. Cherine @ Chico's Kitchen
8. The Cook and The Dishwasher
9. Karen @ Tasty Trials
10. Maybelle's Mom @ Feeding Maybelle
11. Azmina @ Lawyer Loves Lunch
12. Lauren @ Foodie House
13. Jeff and Heather @ He Cooks...She Cooks...
14. Russell @ Chasing Delicious
15. Sonia @ Nasi Lemak Lover

Parmesan Crusted Fish with Carrot Flowers

Funnily enough, ever since Ivanka Trump tweeted that this was one of her favourite dishes (not that she actually cooks it, of course. She has people to do that!), I've been wanting to try it out. Maybe my inner psyche was in actual fact wanting to experience what it must be like to be Ivanka, even if it's only through this one dish and even though I have to cook it myself.  Sigh...

Luckily, she had posted the recipe up on her FB profile, so off I went to the kitchen to ahem... be Ivanka's chef, and later on, her. Lol! At least she has a good head on her shoulders and is a great role model for women everywhere.

Parmesan Crusted Fish with Carrot Flowers
Ingredients:
1 large (1 inch thick) cod fillet (or you can use sea bass, halibut, even grouper)
3 cloves garlic
2 shallots
1 tsp grated ginger
1 lime, squeezed
Ground pepper salt

For the crusted topping:
2 tblspn grated Parmesan cheese
2 tblspn butter
2 tblspn plain yoghurt
½ cup breadcrumbs

For the carrot flowers:
1 medium carrot, grated thinly lengthwise
1 egg

Method:

1. Preheat broiler/oven to high.
2. In a small bowl combine parmesan, butter, yoghurt and set aside.
3. Chop the garlic and shallots and mix together with the grated ginger. Set aside.

I love the smell of fresh ginger!

This one's just after being grated, with the fibres standing upright at the top.

4. Season fillet with lime juice, salt and pepper, then place it on a lightly greased broiler pan. Sprinkle garlic, shallots and ginger mix over the top and broil 6 inches from heat for 10 minutes.

5. Remove from oven and spread cheese mixture on top of the fillet - top that with a sprinkling of breadcrumbs.

6. Return to the oven and broil for about 3 minutes, or until the tops are lightly browned and bubbly. The breadcrumbs burn easily so do keep an eye on it.

7. While the fish is cooking, prepare the carrot flowers. Use a potato peeler to thinly slice carrot strips along the length of the carrot.

8. Arrange carrot strips in a microwave egg poacher (below), spoon in the egg white that has been separated from the yolk and season with black pepper. If you don't have this poacher kitchen gadget thing, just use a shallow bowl.

9. Microwave for about 1 minute and it’s done. Take this out and arrange on top of each other to form “carrot flowers” and serve with the crusted fish fillet.

  

I retired to the dining table and ate this accompanied by some iced jasmine green tea laced with lime and  raspberries. 

Like Ivanka, I'm a very happy girl indeed! (To The Donald - If I can't be your daughter, can I at least be your Apprentice?)