Homemade Pizza Galore

Ever since I've learnt how to make pizza from scratch, I've been making pizza with various toppings that I can find in my fridge and larder. There will always be some frozen frankurters, cheeses, tomato paste, onion, canned button mushroom and so forth lying around for my case. On such occassions, it's usually done on an instant basis without pre-planning or what so ever, all I needed is about an hour or less from mixing the dough right up to removing the pizza from the oven. Other times, stuff like pepperoni, which is my boiboi favourite, will find its way on my pizzas.

The dough recipe is from Australian Women's Weekly and I find that it's a pretty common recipe used by most people especially bloggers from around the world. This dough is good to make two thin pizzas or one thick pizza. For the tomato paste, I will add in herbs like oregano and basil, some sea salt and black pepper for flavour.

Basic Pizza Dough

2 teaspoons (7g) dried yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
½ teaspoon salt
¾ cup (180ml) warm water
2½ cups (375g) plain flour (sometimes I uses bread flour that creates a more chewy base)
2 tablespoons olive oil

Combine yeast, sugar, salt and the warm water in small bowl, cover; stand in warm place about 20 minutes or until mixture is frothy. (Actually you don't need to wait till frothy unless you plan to let your dough rises).

Combine flour and oil in large bowl; stir in yeast mixture, mix to a soft dough. Knead dough on floured surface about 5 minutes or until smooth and elastic.

Place dough in large oiled bowl, cover; stand in warm place about 1 hour or until dough doubles in size. (Can skip this step. I will only follow this when I uses bread flour.)

Meanwhile, preheat oven to very hot. Turn dough onto floured surface; knead until smooth. Divide dough in half; using rolling pin, flatten dough and roll each half out to a 32cm round.

Carefully lift each round onto oiled pizza pan or oven tray; cover each with toppings. Bake, uncovered, in very hot oven 20 minutes.

Check out some of the pizzas I've made. This one is topped with sardines in olive oil, crabsticks, colourful capsicums/bell peppers.



It's always handy to keep a pack of frozen Ayamas premium sausages in the freezer. Best for emergency like this case, an instant pizza. Noticed the slightly thicker crust for this pizza? I've used bread flour and the dough texture is slightly denser. I kinda like this crust but not hubby.



Thin crusted chicken (stir-fried in some olive oil and garlic), mushroom, onions and of course capsicums/bell peppers.



When my boiboi is not napping, I allow him to roll out his own dough, spread the tomato paste and place his own toppings. This is his pizza base topped with chicken pieces, grated carrots, onions and capsicums/bell peppers. I helped him to top up the grated cheese. Errr no picture of the finished product cos boiboi literally camped in front of the oven waiting for his pizza to be cooked.



I simply loved this pizza topped with tomatoes and pepperoni! Very flavourful. My boiboi whacked 2 wedges of them!



Now, the following pics were my Braided Pizza. Did this after I saw Su-Yin's video. Seems simple but I rolled my dough too thin hahaha not enough to cover up the fillings of tomatoes and sausages. Sprinkled some powdered parmigiano on top.

How about that? Inspired enough to play-play with some dough yourself? You can try this over the weekend. Happy weekend!

Technorati Tags: pizza

Braised Chicken with Carrots and Onions

Fry chicken pieces (I normally used chicken thigh) in some oil till slightly browned, then add in quartered onions. Let onions caramalised a bit before adding the carrots (chopped into large pieces). Stir and add in some oyster sauce to taste. Some people add in some soy sauce and dark soy sauce as well but it's entirely up to you. Pour in some water, barely cover the chicken pieces and simmer in low heat till chicken is tender (takes about 20 mins or so). No need to add salt since the oyster sauce is flavourful already. The gravy produced is slightly sweetish due to the onions and carrots. Kids will love the gravy cos I certainly did when I was a kid.

Best served with steamed white rice.

Technorati Tags: chicken + poultry

Review: Madam Wong Cafe

**Non-Halal Post**

Today, I'm going intro a place that you might have easily missed when you're in Sungai Wang Plaza. Ever heard of Madam Wong Cafe??? No leh...???

Madam Wong Cafe is located on the second floor where the arcades were err I think they still have a few there but that area used to look kinda sleazy and smoky have turned quite all right these days. So I guess this must be why you might not have stepped into this area just like myself.

It was my younger set of colleagues whom brought me to this obscure place. I have been there during lunch and it can get pretty crowded at times but nevertheless service is fast and attentive. A refreshing break from the Hong Kong style cafes in that area! Madam Wong's tag "The modern lifestyle of kopitiam" is very apt for this place as the decor is pretty futuristic and clean cut. The cafe is very bright and clean with white washed walls, dark table top and white roundish stools and cutesy chairs adorning the small space. This cafe serves local fare from toasts to noodles and typical dai chow (stir fry) type of dishes but serve with individual rice portion.





Hubby ordered the Golden Meat Rice set (RM9.30) which came with a bowl of soup of the day, a large glass of real iced lemon tea (not instant mix - superb!) and dessert of the day which is usually a small portion of chocolate pudding. The soup served was white raddish soup which is really yummy that hubby asked for a refill haha. Just like my mom's homemade soup but of course without the MSG. The only funny thing is they serves the pudding at the same time with the soup!

The Golden Meat Rice have loads of pork pieces cooked with onions and green capsicum/bell pepper in a sweet sour sauce. Tasted something like koe loe yuk from your typical dai chow stall. Not bad as one can taste the wok hei (breath of a wok).



I had this Supreme Pork Ribs Rice (RM7.90) served with golden raisin rice which is just plain rice mixed with golden raisins. The raisins lent a sweetish taste to the rice and went well with the ribs. The ribs tasted some what like pai kuat wong but better! The meat was tender and the sauce went well with the rice. I would also loved to recommend their Marmite Chicken, it's just so delicious and I knew they used bottled Marmite unlike some places where they recreate their own Marmite sauce as it's quite pricey. How I know?? Just check the first picture, above the glass door cabinets! The Harm Darn Chiew Yarn (Ultraman Balls haha) made of minced meat wrapped in salted egg yolk is great too with the accompanying chili sauce.



This was hubby's chocolate pudding drizzled with some evaporate milk from the set. Nothing special here as the pudding tasted heavy of cocoa powder mixture.



Hubby ordered this Sea Coconut tong shui (sweet soup) (RM2.30) that came bursting with cubed sea coconut, longan and white fungus (suet yue). Slighty on the sweet side for me but suited hubby just fine since he have a terribily sweet tooth. I have yet to try their black glutinous rice with fresh mango tong shui as most times I'm too stuffed after eating my meal. Must go back to try just that next time.



Good food with reasonable price (without any service charge nor Government tax), I won't hesitate to visit again. Check out Oddstuff pics of this cafe.

Madam Wong Cafe
Lot AS114, Second Floor
Sungai Wang Plaza

Technorati Tags: malaysian food

Review: Bakerzin's Mini SnowSkin Mooncake Series

UPDATED 29 September 2006

Phone and facsimile numbers updated for 1 Utama branch.


Apologies in order as I did not manage to snap any pictures for this post hahaha cos they were sooo good that they disappeared in no time!!!! So what I've gotten here are some pics from their brochure, better than nothing huh?

I usually prefer the traditional flavours when it comes to mooncakes. Call me old fashion if you want but seriously I wouldn't want chocolates, cheese, coffee nor tiramisu in my mooncakes except those I've tried from Shangri-la Hotel last year! However, this time, I'm gonna cross this line. Trust me on this, if you like snow skin mooncake, you'll love these from Bakerzin. Hubby turned fan eventhough he never likes snow skin mooncake!!! Amazing eh? He simply loves the Single Malt Whisky Truffle Mini Snowskin Mooncake (quite a mouthful eh the name?) that he claims packed solid with whisky. The skin is so soft and light, as did the fillings. By the way, the truffle round is coated with white chocolate!!!! Sighhh so lovely and it's so expensive hahaha... cos their mini is really mini but nevermind... it's once in a year indulgence.

Pink Champagne Truffle Mini Snow Skin was absolutely pretty looking in pale pink. I did not detect much champagne in it but then again champagne taste is less stronger than whisky. A lovely gift for the ladies, so guys, please take note! You'll bowl your lady over with these pretty-in-pink babies.

They have Lavender Truffle Mini Snow Skin too which we did not get. Aisay, forgot to even try it out as they allowed sampling. Otherwise, one can get the Truffle Mini Snow Skin set that contains all the above flavours or the Assorted Mini Snow Skin.

Don't wait, fax in your order now or traipse over to either Bangsar Village or 1Utama to get your fix of these lovely mooncakes. Errr just for your info, I did not get paid for this plug!!! Just wanna share these goodies with all of you. Drop me a line if you share the same taste like mine.

For those of you whom have tasted Hong Kong's Maxim or Wing Wah mooncakes and hankering for some in Kuala Lumpur, head on to Hartamas Shopping Centre's Citi Super Supermarket. According to the signage, it said they were air-flown in for this year's Mid-Autumn Festival but they're not cheap though... you'll need to fork out RM40 plus PER mooncake!!! Well, even if you were to get in Hong Kong, the price should be around there after conversion. Personally, I don't quite like Wing Wah's mooncakes as they were just too oily for my taste.


Bakerzin
Bangsar Village
G5 Floor Level, Bangsar Village
No. 1, Jalan Telawi Satu
Bangsar Baru
59100 Kuala Lumpur
Tel: (603)2284 7514
Fax: (603)2284 9606

G-312, Ground Floor Highstreet
One Utama Shopping Centre
No. 1 Lebuh Bandar Utama
Bandar Utama
(oppsie, left the brochure at home, will provide the phone and fax numbers later)
Tel: (603)7729 4493
Fax: (603)7729 3127

Technorati Tags: snow skin mooncake + mooncake + mid-autumn festival

513 Pieces of My Past

I just collected my 9 months plus worth of pics to be printed and they came out to be about 4 and half inches thick or rather tall!!!!! Amazing eh... luckily half of them were free prints given when I bought my digicam last year heh else really "pokai" to pay so much in one go haha...

Fresh Cream Puffs

I happened to picked up the May - June 2006 edition of Flavours on Saturday and re-read the mag. Glancing thru the ingredients I have with me, looks like I could try making cream puffs, published under Chef's Technique hosted by Jean-Michel Fraisse, since I did not have enough butter to bake a cake. Hence on Sunday, I stirred and baked my first cream puff. I followed the recipe for the choux pastry and fresh cream. Ended up with a batch of Fresh Cream Puffs (Choux Chantilly) where the puffs weren't as fluffy and crispy. Definitely way off from Beard Papa's.

I suspected that I did not cook the choux pastry long enough before beating in the eggs AND I sort of under baked the pastry! Must practise on my next batch soon. Anyone wanna volunteer to be a guinea pig? Haha cos I ended having too much to be eaten within the same day.

CHOUX PASTRY

250ml water
65g butter
1/8 tsp salt
125g plain flour
3-4 eggs

Place water, butter and salt in a pan. Bring to boil. Remove from heat and add the flour all at once, stirring continously with wooden spatula. Place pan over high heat and cook, stirring continously until mixture leaves the sides of the pan. Remove from heat and cool for 5 minutes. Mix in the eggs one by one, stirring to incorporate well after each addition.

Fill pastry into piping bag attached with round nozzle. Pipe into golf ball sized shapes, 5cm (2 inches) apart on parchment lined tray. (I was too lazy with this that I just dropped them onto the tray using spoons.)

Bake in preheated oven at 180C for 15 minutes or until golden brown. Allow the puffs to cool and dry out in the oven with the door open.

FRESH CREAM

200ml UHT cream
50g sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
icing sugar for dusting

Beat together cream, sugar and vanilla essence until thick and stiff. Fill pastry cream into a piping bag attached with round nozzle. Fill the puff by inserting the nozzle into a hole pierced at the bottom of the puff. (Like I've mentioned earlier, I was lazy, well it was a Sunday haha... so I just cut the puffs into halves leaving the last bit of the puff attached and spooned in the cream.) Dust with icing sugar. Refrigerate and serve chilled.


Ref: Jean-Michel Frisse, 2006, Puff Perfect, Flavours, Vol. 13, Issue 6, No. 56

Technorati Tags: fresh cream puff + cream puff

Stir Fry Prawns with Capsicum

A very very simple stir fry prawn dish with crunchy and sweet capsicum. All I did was shelled the prawns but left the tail intact and slitted the back to remove the string of black stuff. Marinaded them with some soy sauce, pepper and some sugar (for crunchiness I learnt somewhere). Cubed some capsicum/bell pepper of different colours and set aside. Next finely chopped some garlic and fresh red chillies. You can omit the chillies if you're feeding young ones.

Heated some olive oil in a wok and fried the prawns first. Flipped them over when it's cooked on one side and dump in the garlic and chillies. Stirred to mix and added in some salt and pepper to taste. Mixed in the capsicum and stir fried till prawns are cooked. Dished up.



Fantastic with white rice or crusty bread like sliced French loaves.

Technorati Tags: prawns + prawn + capsicum + bell pepper

Happy Birthday Darling!

Today is hubby's birthday and I hurriedly made a batch of birthday cupcakes for him since I'm on leave. I'm leaving now for dinner with the family hence no time to link stuff up at the moment. The recipe used was from Donna Hay's Modern Classics Book 2, page 54 with buttercream frosting on page 96. However for the frosting, I took Jo's advice on using 1/3 portion of butter and 2/3 portion of Krimwell (a type of shortening for creaming purpose) and the texture was just right for the decor and piping. I had a tough time with the decor since it's my first time playing with piping and stuff. The end results looked kinda ugly but who cares, he still have to eat them hahaha...

Darling,

Some people make others happy by simply being who they are.
Happy Birthday to one of those people.

Lots of love,
Babe

Review: Tian Yian Cafe & Restaurant

Tian Yian Cafe & Restaurant is a vegetarian restaurant located in Taman Miharja, Cheras. Tian Yian is not your typical vegetarian restaurant serving Chinese style vegetarian fare. As you would have noticed in their name, they're also a cafe serving Western vegetarian food like pizza, burger, steaks (yeah, steaks but using mock meat!), eggless vegetarian cakes in all sorts of flavours, fluffy buns and healthy breads. Other than these, local dishes like nasi lemak and a variety of noodles are available as well. Tian Yian also have an extensive drink list in their menu leaning towards Taiwanese style drinks like bubble tea, smoothie and juices. This cafe cum restaurant is clean and has a very pleasant decor and environment. A perfect place to have a drink with a slice of cake!

At our recent visit there one afternoon, hubby ordered a few Chinese dishes to be served with white rice. They do have set meals for as few as 4 people to 10 which are pretty reasonable in terms of price. Since there were just 2 of us and boiboi, the waiter told us that we can pick which ever dishes we fancy from the set. So hubby went on ordering a couple of dishes that the waiter recommended and a soup. I specifically asked for the mutton curry rendang which is really hearty and yummy with white rice.

The waiter recommended this Sar Cha Soup (RM5.50). Sar Cha is a type of sauce/paste which the Taiwanese named it barbeque sauce. The Taiwanese usually use this as their steamboat soup base. I'm not very sure what's the make of this sauce and I can't really describe its flavour and taste. It's something that one need to take some time to adjust to the taste. This soup came with tofu, vegetables, seaweed and mock fishball which is really bouncy and tasted quite close to normal fishball. I wonder how they make the taste so real! The portion given is enough to serve 3-4 soup bowls, quite generous here I would say.



Here's Tian Yian's signature Mutton Curry Rendang (RM10.00) that came with many pieces of tender mock mutton meat and potatoes. As I've mentioned earlier, this rendang is very hearty, fantastic with white rice. This is something that I won't miss ordering each time I dine here.



Hubby had wanted a vegetable dish and waiter recommended this. Since the waiter is of a foreign nationality, it's kinda hard to understand what he explained. All we were told was it's made of beancurd sheets (foo chuk) with some greens on its side. I nearly fainted when it came since it's quite a large portion for the 2 of us. Can't imagine eating so much foo chuk! Eh but when we dug in, underneath the foo chuk, there were meen karn (a type of gluten), mushrooms, baby corns, bell peppers etc. No wonder the name in the receipt for this dish was 8 Treasure With Vegetables (RM18.00). This dish is very ching (literally clear), a total contrast of the rendang. A hint of Chinese herbs can be detected in the gravy. Nice!



Since boiboi is with us, we need to order something tasty for him. Waiter recommended this mock meat coated with mayonnaise like sauce topped with almond slivers (RM15.00). This dish is a winner with boiboi. I think he ate 4 - 5 pieces of the mock meat alone. The sauce that coated the mock meat was not overly creamy and compliments well with the deep fried mock meat. Definitely another must-order dish in my list now. Sorry for the blurry pic cos I was in a hurry to snap a pic before hubby tuck in and/or roll his eyes.



I've tried some of the fried noodles and pizza on my previous visits. I have to say their pizza looked and tasted like the real thing. I'm not really sure if the cheese they've used is of the vegetarian kind since my colleague does take dairy products in her vegetarian diet. She was the one whom highly recommended the pizza. The pizza is about 10 inches or could be 12, hence should be shared instead of stuffing it down alone! Don't say I didn't warn you!!! Haha...

For all the above, 2 portion of rice (RM1.00 each), 2 glasses of iced lemon tea (RM4.00 each) plus 5% Government tax, the bill came to RM61.43. You might say it's a tad pricey for the two and a half of us but I have to say the portion is actually good enough for 3 - 4 adults. We actually did managed to wipe out everything, thank goodness for the small portion of rice. *Ahem* You can actually call both of us GLUTTON! We have to skipped dinner that day after this late lunch.

Watch out for piping hot bakes like mock meat floss bun, breads, baos and pastries at the cashier counter. These stuff flies off the shelves very quickly, so do grab some before you leave. Their mock meat floss bun is absolutely Heavenly! It's very soft and fluffy like Japanese style breads. They're now selling vegetarian mooncakes for the festive season. If I'm not mistaken, they have a branch in Taman Petaling Utama called Sky De Cafe which my friend said is a popular choice for vegetarian couples to hold their wedding banquets.

Now, how to get there??? It would be the easiest to come from the city centre along Jalan Loke Yew. When you are approaching Plaza UE3, keep to your left and follow the detour on the left. Be careful here since there are a lot of road works going on to widen the road. Look out for the first right junction and turn in. You'll see 2 rows of shophouses. Make a left turn (the inner row) and drive towards the end of the shophouses. You can see many hawkers along the road divider. Tian Yian is on your left occupying 2 shoplots. You can see their name in green on the signboard above the shoplots.

Tian Yian Cafe & Restaurant
5, 7 & 9, Jalan 3/93,
Taman Miharja, Jalan Cheras,
Kuala Lumpur
Tel: (603)9281 8837
Opening hours: 11am - 9pm

Technorati Tags: vegetarian + malaysian food

Grilled Chicken Wings

Marinade some chicken wings with some soy sauce, worcestershire sauce, pepper and ginger juice for a few hours in the fridge. Place wings on roasting rack and grille. Baste a couple of times with the remainder marinade. Lastly baste with some honey all over and grille till slightly charred.

Very far flung from Wong Ah Wah's grilled chicken wings but still delicious nevertheless.

Technorati Tags: chicken wings + chicken + poultry

Steamed Dong Guai Chicken

Another easy peasy and healthy steamed herbal chicken dish but this time round, I've used a couple slices of dong quai (angelica), some kei chi (boxthorn/lycium/Chinese wolfberry) and a couple of dried red dates. Marinaded skinned chicken thighs with soy sauce, pepper, wee bit of sesame oil and Ginger wine. Placed chicken on aluminium foil, then topped with the herbs. Wrapped tightly and steamed for about 30 - 45 minutes.

This dish looked dang unappetising but the aromatic dong quai and wine wafted in the air the moment I opened the foil package. I lapped up the hearty broth in a gusto which I'm sure you will too!



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