Marang Brown Sugar Gratin

Ever since I saw the recipe for Raspberry Brown Sugar Gratin featured on The Smitten Kitchen, it drove me nuts thinking how simple it looked (only 3 ingredients, yes, THREE) and how delicious, just from the photos! But Deb of SK is in New York, while I am here, all the way in Brunei. Where in heavens name can I find fresh raspberries? There are frozen ones in the posher supermarkets, of course, but they just don't have the same feel, you know.

Never one for coloring inside the lines, I decided that well, there are many other fruits here in the tropics and might as well use what we have in abundance. However what goes with sour cream and brown sugar? Hmm... after a bit of thought (all 3 seconds of it), I had my A-ha moment - I shall use Marang! In Brunei, this fruit with its tender, sweet, white flesh is also called Tarap, and I had written about it a few posts back. So I only made one small ramekin to try this out, and here's a quick pictorial before we get to the recipe.

Hahaha, don't you just love the last picture? It's a clear demonstration of my gluttony - so sinful! Anyway, here are the four ingredients and bear in mind I only made one small ramekin, so just multiply this recipe accordingly if you're serving to guests.

Marang Brown Sugar Gratin
Ingredients:

1-2 tablespoons marang flesh, pitted

2 tablespoons sour cream

2 tablespoons soft, brown sugar

Almond slivers, for sprinkling

Method:

1. Layer the ramekin as follows (bottom to top): marang, sour cream, brown sugar and almonds.

2. Bake under a hot broiler for about 2-3 until the sugar starts to caramelize. I found that my almonds burnt way earlier than the sugar, but I like the taste of burnt nuts. If you don't, another option is is to add the almonds slightly later in the baking process to have them just browned.

3. Serve immediately and brace yourself for compliments!

Hokay, here are alternatives to the ingredients so you can serve these many, many times with different variations:
Fruit - use berries, soft peaches, bananas, avocado, dragon fruit, oh the list is endless...
Sour cream - use creme fraiche or thick yoghurt
Nuts - use toasted pecans, walnuts, cashews, macadamia

Gosh that was soooo wonderfully yummy, I think I'll go make another one...

Spanakopita Wannabes

While I was running with my friend, LAZsie the other day, she mentioned this Greek savoury pastry called Spanakopita and how ultra-delicious it was, and that yeah, I should try to make it. Jogging along steadily, she went on to describe the ingredients which consists mainly of spinach and feta cheese, all lovingly wrapped up in layered phyllo pastry. I swear, just listening to her made me gain a few calories… even while we were trying to lose some at the time.

So today, I was lying in bed and contemplating if I should try to make Spanakopita. Went downstairs, searched around and alas, there were no spinach and no feta in sight. But wait.. there was still some phyllo in the freezer! In the end, you could say that I made something inspired by Spanakopita, and it was equally as delicious. For the purposes of this post, let’s just call it the “Spanakopita Wannabes”.

The great thing about this healthy dish is that I made them using a standard muffin tray so that they didn’t fall apart and retained some sort of pyramidal shape. The phyllo-wrapped Wannabes contained these: egg-plant, baby corn, chives and shredded parmesan cheese. A winning combination, even my veggie-picky home-dwellers liked it!

Spanakopita Wannabes

Ingredients:

Makes: 8 muffin-sized portions

2 eggplants, peeled and sliced

3 baby corn, sliced

Bunch of chives, cut into 2-inch lengths

3 cloves garlic, chopped

½ onion, sliced thinly

2 tablespoons shredded Parmesan cheese

8 Phyllo pastry sheets

Olive oil

Method:

1. Cook the filling first by heating 2 tablespoons of olive oil and frying the garlic, onion and chives until fragrant. Add the eggplant and baby corn and stirfry until the vegetables are slightly cooked, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, set aside to cool. Once cooled, add the shredded Parmesan and mix well.

2. Thaw the phyllo sheets and make sure you place a damp cloth over the sheets while you are working with them as they tend to dry out very quickly. Rub some olive oil on both sides of a sheet, fold it into a wide cone and place the pointed end of the cone inside a muffin cup.

Fold over phyllo to seal the cone, then flip over and tuck into the muffin cup.

3. Spoon in the vegetable and cheese filling, fold the phyllo over the open side of the cone, turn it over and tuck the folded part into the base of the muffin cup.

4. Bake in a preheated oven at 180°C for 10 minutes until brown and crispy. Serve while still warm.

The advantage of using these vegetables as fillings is that I didn’t have to worry about them being “wet” after they are cooked. I think with spinach, you still have to squeeze some amount of liquid out to ensure that the phyllo won’t get soggy once they are filled. Using Parmesan over Feta gives good flavour too, it’s just not as moist as the real Spanakopita. I'm confident the Greeks won’t mind me copying being inspired by their dish – graciousness must after all be one of the hallmarks of a great civilization.

Red Durian Quick Rolls

 Red durian

Red Durian Quick Roll

As you can probably figure out by now, my favourite colour is red. That includes my food too, because it seems that I'm strangely drawn to the red (naturally red, of course) coloured foods. Examples are strawberries, raspberries, red capsicum, red dragon fruit and now since it's in season in Brunei, red durians!

Durians are really an acquired taste for people who are not brought up eating this sweet, pungent-smelling fruit. But then hey, I eat smellies like blue cheese without any problem and I wasn't exactly brought up on that! I guess the key here is to keep an open mind and don't just believe everything you hear or read until you try it (food-wise, I'm talking about here).

Sharp spikes of the durian skin

The sumptuous red durian

Which brings us back to the subject of the spiky durians, which I love. All types - white, orange, red ones - there are so many varieties. The red durians are prevalent in Borneo and they have a very rich, sweet taste that I can't adequately describe here. If only my tongue could write, I would let it have a go at telling you how this fruit tastes like. Lol!

We had several in the house and ah yes, the strong aroma penetrated throughout the whole house. I decided that perhaps the durian flesh would be good as a filling in some rolls so here it is, I came up with my Red Durian Quick Rolls recipe. If you can get your hands on some durian flesh (any colour), do give this a go....and if you love durian, it's just dreamy. To my friend KJR, this post is dedicated to you, a soon-to-be durian convert. *grins* 

  

Red durian flesh, dark chocolate shavings and a sprinkling of brown sugar as the fillings.

Rolls before they entered the oven

Glazed durian rolls. Yuhhmeee!!!

Red Durian Quick Rolls

Ingredients for quick bread:

2 cups plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup milk

Filling:

1 cup durian flesh

100g chocolate shavings

1 tablespoon brown sugar

Sliced almonds, for sprinkling

Glaze:

1 cup icing sugar

2 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled

2 tablespoons milk

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 200°C, and line a baking tray with non-stick baking paper.

2. In a bowl, mix flour, baking powder, salt and rub in butter until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add milk and knead briefly until it becomes a rollable dough. Add a bit more milk if it's too dry.

3. Roll dough out into a rectangle shape, and spread durian flesh on top. Sprinkle chocolate filling and brown sugar evenly over the durian layer.

4. Working with the long edge, roll the dough into a log and cut into slices about 1-inch wide. Place these onto the lined  baking tray, sprinkle some sliced almonds over the top and bake for 20-25 minutes.

5. Prepare glaze by mixing together icing sugar, cooled melted butter, then add milk gradually to thin out the glaze. Let the cooked durian rolls cool for 5 minutes before spooning glaze over them.

Go on, keep an open mind and try making these. They are scrumptious with some hot tea or coffee!

Brunch and Lunner: Of Capsicum, Eggs Benedict, Red Cabbage & Cranberries

Brunch

Lunner

When I awoke today, it was a bit too late for breakfast. So for want of a better word to describe my morning meal, I had “Brunch”. Looked around in the fridge and found a leftover from my Capsicum Icecream recipe – half of a red capsicum. Hmm… not exactly breakfast food, is it? But then, this is not breakfast, it’s errr… “brunch”.

I’m not sure why that word tickles me so, perhaps it conjures up in my mind the hoity-toity ladies of leisure who have a penchant for dining out with their friends during the day for “Brunch” or "High Tea". Sad really, because for a minute there I might have been describing MYSELF! That is, if I could afford to dine out all the time like other, real Divas of leisure.

Anyway, for my own leisurely brunch, I settled for something that vaguely resembled eggs benedict, with a twist. I stuffed the bottom of the half-capsicum with small chunks of wholemeal bread and then broke a raw egg over it (inside the capsicum). Sprinkled some grated Parmesan cheese, sliced some black olives, poured a teaspoon of virgin olive oil over it and placed the whole thing under a hot grill for about 10 minutes. For the side-kicks, I toasted some more slices of the homemade wholemeal multigrain bread (phew, a mouthful!) and sliced some green apples. The whole combo was oh-so-thumbs up!

The uncooked egg buried underneath all the Parmesan and black olives.

Then I skipped lunch to do some errands, and when I returned it was a bit too late for lunch but too early for the so-called High Tea. So I don’t know what to call the meal one eats at about 2.30pm but that’s when I had it. My meal was a simple, quick throw-everything-together affair but still fairly healthy – I think. What I had, I shall call it “Red Cabbage Vermicelli with Dried Cranberries”. The colours rocked! See for yourself.

The ingredients I used

Boiled the vermicelli (this looks like just a thinner version of spaghetti) for about 6 minutes and drained the water. Then I chopped some garlic and a shallot, fried those in about 2 tablespoons of virgin olive oil. Tossed in the red cabbage, which had been sliced thinly beforehand, added a tablespoon of dried cranberries, a teaspoon of ready-made pesto and cooked all that for about 2-3 minutes. I seasoned mine with river salt flakes (hey, since I have it, why not?) and ground pepper, then it was ready to plate. All in all, it took less than 10 minutes to prepare and the colours and taste were simply mind-boggling! If I had fresh basil, I would’ve used that instead of the pesto, but I didn’t so this was the improvisation.

I'm fascinated by the mysterious cabbage folds...

Sliced cabbage, stir-fried with garlic, shallots, pesto and dried cranberries

Aren't the colours just fabulous together?

To wash down the meal, I made a drink out of frozen raspberries blended with skimmed milk plus a teaspoon of brown sugar - just because. Then to round everything off, I had about 2 (ok, it was more like 3) scoops of the ginger-orange-chocolate icecream I made the other day, and Mamma Mia, that was some “Lunner” (what I've decided to call the meal between lunch and dinner). Tomorrow I'm going for a 10K run with my friend, LAZsie so this will all be worked off. No guilt in advance!

Ginger-orange-chocolate icecream drizzled with homemade caramel sauce. Yummsy!

Freshly Baked Multigrain Bread with Grilled Vegetables & Feta Cheese

A few weeks ago I bought this multigrain flour from the German Shop and although I've used it to make some muffins, I hadn't up to this point made any actual bread with it. Well, that has now changed and if I knew earlier how easy it was to bake this crusty, bursting-with-health-and-goodness bread, I would've done it earlier!

To accompany the bread, I grilled an eggplant (aubergine) and a capsicum (bell pepper) with fresh rosemary and seasoned all that with ground pepper and naturally pink river salt flakes (yes, you read that right, pink). Then I sliced some strawberries, crumbled some feta cheese over the top and unashamedly ate it all myself, plus seconds... it was that delicious!

A slight digression here: I never realised how many different types of salt there are out there! Here are some pretty ones that I like.

L to R: Naturally pink river water salt flakes, Anglesey sea salt, Himalayan crystal salt

Pretty in pink

Back to the bread. Here's the recipe:

Wholemeal, multigrain bread

Ingredients:

500g multigrain flour

320ml lukewarm water

1 teaspoon dried yeast

Method:

1. Add yeast to the flour in a mixing bowl and gradually pour in the lukewarm water. Knead with hands or use the mixer's kneading hook until the mixture becomes a pliable dough and shape into a ball.

2. Leave dough in the bowl to rise to double its size for about 45 minutes, and cover bowl with a clean, damp cloth.

3. When risen, transfer to a baking tray lined with silpat and leave the dough to rise for another 15 minutes.

4. Make a criss-cross cut on top of the dough with a moistened knife and bake in a preheated oven at 230°C for 20-25 minutes. If you want a very crusty top, brush the top of the ball with a little water before baking. 

Easybake multigrain wholemeal bread - from dough to finish

 

The fillings for the sandwich - capsicum, eggplant, strawberries, sheep's milk Feta cheese, fresh rosemary

Dressed to Grill.

Just pour some virgin olive oil, season with salt and pepper, and you're all set!

Don't forget the side salad...

 

Daymnn... that sandwich is good.

This simple meal went well with some iced lychee lemonade!

 

I held my friend's (Izar) newborn baby niece in my arms today and then went home to bake some bread. It's been a good day.