Coconut and Lime Pie

It doesn't take much before I cook something out of ennui.

And this Coconut and Lime Pie is a result of one of my late night baking exercises. Something about making food calms and detoxes me off my daily stresses.

I had a can of coconut milk and a dozen limes from a frenzy purchase at the supermarket. The limes were going for 99cents/pound. And a pound of lime yields fifteen fruits, at least! I have made lemon meringue pie and key lime pie before this and with two limes in each hand, I wondered if I could do the same with a can of coconut milk and some limes - and so a kitchen experiment entailed.

Coconut and lime are classic flavors, if you like pina coladas you will like this tropical mix. You know the song that goes something like this:

She put the lime in the coconut, and drank them both up
She put the lime in the coconut, and drank them both up
She put the lime in the coconut,
Called the doctor, woke him up, and said,
"Doctor, ain't there nothin' I can take,
I say, Doctor, to relieve this belly ache?
I say, Doctor, ain't there nothin' I can take,
I say, Doctor, to relieve this belly ache?"

- Coconut

I didn't have a belly ache as a result of this pie, I had a belly full of goodness out of it.

The pie was a success despite my attempt at making without a proper recipe. I loved how each bite melts on my tongue upon contact leaving a trail of lime and coconut perfume. I think if you need a dose of sunshine during the cold wintery days ahead, I suggest baking this for a little self-pampering and warm comfort with the ones you love. Nothing like reminiscing the good hot sun with some caribbean flavors :)

Coconut and Lime Pie recipe

For the crust:
1/2 cup dessicated coconut (unsweetened), roasted until golden brown
1 cup of graham cracker crumbs
1/4 cup brown sugar
150grams cup butter, softened

Filling:
1 can of coconut milk
1/4 cup of lime juice
zest from 1 lime
3 egg yolks + 1 whole egg (unless otherwise stated, you must always assume I used large eggs for all my recipes)
2 tablespoon corn starch
1/2 cup sugar


Method:
First pre-heat your oven to 350F degrees. Prepare your springform pan (or any normal cake pan will do but springform is more convenient)

1. Make the crust by combining all of the ingredients together; dessicated coconut, graham cracker crumbs, sugar and butter. Once they are mixed together, they will hold their shape when you try to form them into a ball.

2. Press the crust compound onto the cake pan to form a nice layer of crust. You can definitely run the crust up to the sides of the pan but I just made a bottom layer crust for my pie.

3. Chill the crust for 15 minutes before baking it in the oven for 15 minutes. You should be able to smell a nice coconut scent in your kitchen by then. Take the crust out and let it chill before further use - I just pop mine into the fridge while I tend to the filling.

4. In a pot, combine sugar and corn starch together first. And then, add the whole can of coconut milk, lime juice, egg yolk and juice. Stir to combine.

5. Heat up the coconut lime mixture under medium heat and whisking constantly. You will need to whisk constantly so that it doesn't stick at the bottom. Once your mixture becomes as thick as a condense milk, add in your lime zest and mix well.

6. Turn off the heat and let your filling cool for 15 minutes before pouring it into your coconut crust. If you have left over roasted dessicated coconut, you can sprinkle some over the top and let it chill in the refrigerator for 3-6 hours before serving.


This pie is just heavenly with a bit of Cool Whip on the side too.

Spotted Orange Biscotti

Biscotti is a staple in my home ever since I knew how to make it. I started making biscotti using Giada De Laurentiis' Chocolate Anise flavored biscotti. Essentially, her recipe is very similar to the chocolate chip cookie, in fact she calls it chocolate anise cookies in her recipe but because she baked it in the shape of a flat loaf, cooled, sliced and then baked again, it becomes biscotti. I guess that means biscotti, as fancy as it sounds, are actually twice baked cookies. :)

I went to watch Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist on Friday and below the cinema was a little cafe. Next to the cash register were big glass cookie jars filled with biscotti of varying flavors. Each biscotto was sold for a whooping $2.75 - I say make your own! Anyway, biscotti is very simple to make and keeps for a long time when stored in an airtight container. I loved how it is crunchy and tasty on its own but when dipped into milk, it becomes one of my favorite ways of eating biscotti. Funnily, I don't like eating biscotti with coffee.

This biscotti recipe, Spotted Orange Biscotti, is an orange flavored biscuit spotted with dried berries and mini chocolate chips. Use only fresh orange zest and not orange flavored essence because that is how it should be done. Use fresh ingredients whenever possible, that is one of my kitchen mottos ;)

Spotted Orange Biscotti Recipe:

Zests from two orange
1/4 cup dried currants
1/4 cup mini chocolate chips
2 cups of all-purpose flour
1.5 teaspoon baking powder
a pinch of salt
2 eggs 1/2 cup butter, soften in room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar


Method:

Preheat oven to 350F and line your baking pan with silpad or parchment paper.

1. Sift your flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl and set aside for later.
2. Combine sugar and butter in a large mixing bowl. Beat them until they become light and fluffy. It would take approximately 5 minutes of beating.
3. Add one egg at a time until mix until the batter is well combined. Now, you can put down your electric mixer or whisk and pick up your spatula.

4. Add in your orange zests into the sunny mixture and combine well. Then, add your flour mixture in 3 parts. After mixing the first part of your flour in, add your dried currants and chocolate chips in. Continue adding in the flour in and mixing until you form a nice dough that does not stick. If your dough is too sticky, pop it into the refrigerator for 15 minutes before handling it again.

5. Bring the spotty dough on to the baking pan and shape it into two 6-inch loaves that is approximately 3/4-inch high. Bake it in the oven for 30 minutes.
6. After 30 minutes, take the first-baked biscotti loaves out of the oven to cool for 30 minutes before slicing them into 1/2 inch thick slices, diagonally. You can do vertical or horizontal cuts too.
7. Arrange them in the same baking pan and bake them for another 15 minutes or until the edges of your biscotti shows a nice pale golden color.
8. Cool them completely before storing.

What's for dinner?

It's almost 1pm on a Saturday afternoon and I am thinking of making an Indian feast! I've done many "feasts for two" before but I have never done Indian. :)

In fact, I have posted two feasts for twos here on this blog as well; a Japanese sushi feast and a Moroccan feast. And I have done Chinese too, it's just that I did not take any pictures for that one. I love the communal eating aspect of these cuisines. Western cuisines are great and individual platters are good when you want to make sure you're eating your own *stuff* but it beats eating together from the same dishes and platter.

So tonight, it will be Indian! I plan to have 1 rice dish with three side dishes and a condiment; butternut squash kofta, chickpea curry, and a small chicken dish with cucumber raita on the side. I'm draining my yogurt on a sieve right now to take out the excess water because that is key to making a good raita :) You can apply this method in making tzatziki too.

Alright, when I'm done cooking I will post up pictures soon after or tomorrow or in a few days time.....;) I needed this post to remind me to capture moments for my next post!

So what did YOU have for dinner; be it today, yesterday or the past week! :)
(*if no one answers then it proves one thing: no one reads my blog except to look at pictures! :P)

Pizza Bomba

A good friend from New Zealand got me a Jamie Oliver cookbook, Jamie At Home, for my birthday recently. I was more than happy because anyone who knows me knows that I love Jamie Oliver. And, I have been a big fan of his since he was the Naked Chef. Needless to say, I had to try out some of the recipes in this cookbook and one of them is called Pizza Bomba, which mean "little bombs". Actually, it's pizza shaped into a ball, oozing with tomato sauce, cheese and basil leaves. The recipe is simple enough, if you have made pizza before this recipe would be a breeze. All you need to do is now shape your pizza into a careful ball making sure there are no holes so that when you deep fry them, they won't leak.

Pizza bomba ingredients:
200g pizza dough
10 cherry tomatoes, cut into halves
a bunch of basil leaves
a handful of mini bocconcini (or cubes of mozzarella)
1 cup of marinara sauce + 1 cup for later
Enough oil for deep frying

Method:
1. Heat up oil in a pan until it reaches 350F on your candy thermometer.

2. Divide your pizza dough into 12 parts or 8 parts, depending on how big your want your Bomba to be.

3. Take a piece of the pizza dough and flatten it with your hand until it is shape into a flat disc of about 3-4 inches in diameter.

4. Put the flat dough on your palm and fill it with some marinara sauce, two pieces of mini bocconcini, 1 leaf of basil and half a cherry tomato.

5. Cup your palm and pinch the dough shut, carefully, making sure there are no small holes for any sauce to escape. It is very similar to making Shanghai Soup Dumplings. :) Once that's done, drop it into the oil for a deep fry until your Bomba turns into a nice golden brown in color.

Repeat until you use up all the dough and sprinkle some kosher salt/sea salt onto the Bombas before putting it in a plate filled with some warmed marinara sauce and serve.

I am an advocate of making your own pizza dough because it's easy to make at home. But if you do not want to mess up your kitchen, you can go to your nearest pizza deli and buy a pound home - it should not cost you very much. The rest of the recipe calls for a simple task of assembling some cheese, basil leaves, cherry tomatoes and some marinara sauce (which, I have advocated making at home as well).

The Pizza Bomba was absolutely delightful. It tastes so simple and yet extraordinarily good - simplicity at its best. I thought the recipe was genius and the Italian mama who created this dish for her son showed such ingenuity and creativity to make food for her beloved. If it had not been for her, Jamie would not have gotten the opportunity to taste a Bomba and shared the recipe with us! :)

I served the pizza bomba as suggested by the cookbook, which is to put it on a bed of warm marinara sauce for dipping and coating the crispy balls.

This recipe will be a hit with the kids, I know it was a hit with us, being kids at heart and all ;) I think Pizza Bomba is a nice twist to the old-fashion pizza.
On the side, I served the Pizza Bombas with a nice French Onion soup. I've made a classic French Onion soup before but here's another picture of it - a better looking one too.

Miso-glazed Sirloin Steak

A quick and delicious steak can simply be seasoned with just salt and pepper, and the right cut. Sirloins are very tasty cuts and can hold their own with just the basic seasonings. I bought a pack of organic 1 inch thick sirloins, which came in three pieces. Of the three, only one of the steaks were used to cook with a miso glaze.

Now, any steak lover would agree that nothing but salt and pepper is all you need to season a good piece of sirloin, but I digress. I thought, "A tasty piece of meat can't be bad if I want to make it tastier, or can it?". I had to experiment :)

I was inspired by Nobu's miso-glazed black cod recipe for this and I must say, I was glad I decided to experiment. Miso-glazed steak is a keeper. I like my steaks cooked medium rare because only then are good cuts worth its salt, so to speak. It is pointless to cook your steaks till it's well done because then, it's no different from eating leather. When it comes to red meat, especially good cuts, either cook it medium rare or buy a cheaper cut and cook it until it falls deliciously apart otherwise, stick to chicken thighs.

So, back to my miso-glazed steak. What I did was a fairly simple process but let's start with the glaze, which essentially is made up of these ingredients:

1 tablespoon miso paste
1 tablespoon mirin
1 garlic clove, grated
1/2 teaspoon grated ginger
1 teaspoon of oil
1/4 teaspoon of pepper
a teaspoon, or more, of water to further thin the miso paste if it's too thick

Mix these ingredients together with a whisk until you get nice paste.

Take your steak and generously rub half of the miso paste on and leave it marinade for 20 minutes.

Heat your pan, I used non-stick because it's convenient, on high with a bit of oil until it is very hot. Once the pan is hot, pan-sear your steak on one side for 3 minutes. Do not move it around, do not poke at it however tempting. After three minutes, turn the steak over and cook for a further 2 minutes and no more..

You should have a nice char on your steak after turning it around, brush the remaining miso glaze over the steak and repeat on the other side.

Let the steak rest for 5 minutes before serving. The miso marinade is enough for two steaks but you can definitely double or triple the portion without any doubts.


P.S. I rarely eat or cook red meat, this is one of the very few times, and quite possibly the last time I am going to eat red meat again. Why I bought the pack of red meat was beyond my explanation except it looked so yummy I had to try some. :)

The Lemon-Vanilla Pound Cake

Previously, I successfully made sponge cake much to my delight. From that successful attempt, I have looked into making pound cake because they are a great treat with a multifaceted use. And bake, I did.

You can use sponge cake as a base for yummy trifles, like my Berried Trifle or you can eat it as is with some warm fruit jam, like I did here. :)

But for conversation's sake, I have this idea of grilling or toasting slices of sponge cake before adding jam to it. Has anyone tried this? I would imagine that the slightly toasted and crispy exterior would provide a beautiful texture and flavor topped with some fresh berries or jam. Well, it would be an experiment for next time as I've run out of pound cake!

This pound cake is a marriage of lemon and vanilla - both are classic flavors that are conventionally used individually but greedy me, I just had to use both. And they were perfect together. Unless otherwise stated, you must assume that I use real vanilla beans as I do not have vanilla essence at all. But you can definitely use vanilla essence because that's what the recipe called for.

Oh. And the recipe I used for the pound cake was from the Joy of Baking. It's a very lovely recipe and I was extremely happy with the results. As I mentioned in my previous post, it tasted like the cakes my grandmother used to order for Chinese New Year for her guests. :)


Here's the recipe:

Recipe:

1 3/4 cups (230 grams) cake flour, sifted

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 cup (226 grams) (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup (200 grams) superfine or castor sugar

4 large eggs, room temperature

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract 2 pods of vanilla, beans scraped

Zest of two lemons (optional)

Method:

Pre-heat oven to 350F and line your 9x5x3 inch baking pan with parchment paper and butter. Set aside. Sift flour, baking powder and salt together in a bowl for later.

1. Cream your butter and sugar until it becomes pale in color. The sugary butter mixture will also double in size and feel light and fluffy after beating for 7minutes. Please use an electric mixer unless you feel your arms are adequately fit for continuous beating for 7-whole-minutes. :)

2. Add eggs, one at time and mix until they are well incorporated into the mixture. After your second egg, you can add your lemon rind and vanilla beans in. Mix well before continuing with your eggs. You might find that your batter will start to separate when you add in your fourth egg in but don't worry, this is perfectly normal. They will come together again when add your flour mixture.

3. Add your flour in three parts. You do not need to measure it, just eyeball the bowl of flour. This will ensure an evenly mixed batter. I would also suggest using a spatula now to mix the flour in to avoid over mixing with your electric mixer. Your cake is now done and ready for baking.

4. Pour the batter into the cake container that you've lined with parchment and greased with butter. Bake for 50minutes - 60 minutes or until the skewer you insert into the cake comes out clean.

5. Let the cake cool before cutting.


Besides jam and trifle, i like dipping my pound cake in cold milk. Is that weird?


P.S. A lot of pictures of the cake making process is still jailed up in the old laptop. :/