Macaroon

Nothing beats the mystique of the delicate almond flavoured macaroon whose history spans some 4 centuries, from monastic origins to haute Parisian tea parties, and war time interludes. The romance of these meringue cookies that marries a crisp crust and a soft chewy interior goes as far back as 1533 (The Food Chronology by James Trager). Read the history of Italian and French connections.



Traditional macaroons are like the Italian amaretti without the bitter-sweet amaretto almond liqueur. These macaroons are baked on edible rice paper. The rice paper is trimmed around the cookie after cooking.




Rice paper is used before the invention of silicone baking parchment. Some of the older folks probably remember the recycled brown paper shopping bags which require steaming over a hot wet tea towel to remove the cookies.




Coconut kisses are many a grandma's x-rated version of the macaroon.




The French spelling is macaron. Pedantic French patissiers refine the cookies, giving them ruffled petticoats or skirts, and smooth shiny, dome sugar crusts, by air drying while resting the uncooked cookies. Haute restaurants serve these intimate French rendition, sandwiched with ganache, buttercream or jam in many combinations of colours and flavours.




Part of the fun making macaroons is to find the perfect matching pair to join together. Grandma's generation bakes slap dash "kisses" without fuss. It takes time to master the intricacies of the macaroon, to create that perfect union in the French style.


Ingredients
60 g icing sugar (3 tablespoons)
40 g almond meal (1/3 c or 1/4 c + 1 tablespoon ground rice/cornstarch/cocoa)
40 g egg white (from 1 x 67 g egg)
30 g castor sugar (1.5 tablespoons)
1 teaspoon water or reserved egg white, optional
2 drops almond essence, optional


Method

1. Freeze the almond meal to prevent oil from clumping the meal.
2. Blend the almond meal with icing sugar in a food processor to aerate and remove lumps.
3. Whisk the egg white and castor sugar over a basin of freshly boiled water until stiff and glossy, but not dry. This takes 2-5 minutes. Do not cook the egg white.
   
4. Fold in the almond and icing mixture. The consistency resembles sloppy mash potatoes.
5. If prefer, adjust with water or reserved egg white to a flowing consistency for a smoother finish. Trails disappear back into the mixture after a few seconds.
6. Fold in flavouring.
7. Fill a piping bag fitted with a plain piping tube, or use a folded greaseproof paper cone with the tip cut off.
   
8. Pipe 2-3 cm rounds on silicon baking parchment or rice paper. Space about 2 cm apart for spreading. Use a tooth pick to adjust the shapes. If wanted, smooth the surfaces with the back of a wet spoon.
9. Transfer the piped sheets to paper lined baking trays.
10. Knock the trays to remove air and to aid smoothing.
11. Rest 30 minutes to 2 hours for sugar crusts to form.
12. Bake at 130 degrees Celsius for 12 minutes, without browning, until firm to touch.
    

Notes
One large egg white (40 g) makes about 72 cookies or 36 sandwiched macaroons with a diameter around 2 cm. For 3 cm diameter, the number of cookies is around 40, or 20 sandwiched pairs.

Instead of almond, use other nuts, seeds, crushed biscuits or coconut. Toast the seeds in a cast iron pan or roast the nuts in an oven at 200 degrees Celsius for 5 minutes. Freeze before milling to prevent clumping and/or oily butter from forming.

For icing sugar, mill granulated sugar to powder in a spice mill. For castor sugar mill granulated sugar in short bursts until the required texture.

Age the egg white at room temperature for at least 1/2 hour before, or overnight for a better consistency of batter.

For browning, cook at 160 degrees Celsius.

Cracks often develop for shorter resting time. Traditional macaroons are not rested. For the characteristic skirts (also called feet) on the French versions, rest for 2-5 hours for the sugar crust to form. Some patissiers dust the raw cookies with icing. Depending on humidity, resting times can be longer or shorter.

To flatten and even out the piped cookies, slap the silicon baking parchment on the kitchen bench before transferring to a baking tray.

To prevent the bottom from browning and reduce cracks, put 3 sheets of printing paper under the silicon baking parchment.

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Malaysia: How to Weave Ketupat Basket for Satay Rice

A lovely palm leaf basket for cooking and serving satay rice. To make your own, follow the pictures below. Click to enlarge the thumbnails. Expert video instructions can be found here.




Twirl 1-metre strips of palm leaves around the left and right hands to give 3 loops on each hand. The head of the palm leaf refers to the stem end, while the tail refers to the tapering leaf end.

Weave right hand loops (green) over left hand loops (yellow) using the following pictures as a guide.




For the first row (bottom of basket), pass right hand loop INTO the left hand loop, OUT over the top of centre loop on left hand, and INTO the last loop on the left hand.




For the second row (middle of basket), pass the middle right hand loop OUT over the top of the left hand loop, INTO the centre loop on the left hand and OUT over the top of the last loop on the left hand.




For the third row (top of basket), pass right hand loop INTO the left hand loop, OUT over the top of centre loop on left hand, and INTO the last loop on the left hand. That is, same as for the first row.




After weaving the right hand loops across the left hand loops, tighten and adjust the basket.




Turn over the basket from top to bottom so that the tails are on the top right. Variation for ketupat bawang, the onion-shaped version, is included at the end. Continue here to make the diamond-shaped ketupat basket.




Weave the horizontal tail (yellow) across the top and down the left side of the basket.




Weave the head (green), on the top left, across the top of the basket.




Flip over and rotate around so that the tail (green), which started on the left hand, is horizontal and to the top right.




Weave the tail (green) across the top and down the left side of the basket to meet up with the other tail (yellow), at the bottom left.




Weave the head (yellow), on the top left, across the top of the basket so that the two heads meet at the top right.




Tighten the heads and tails to complete the basket. To fill with rice, open a mouth at the corner where the heads meet. After filling to 3/4 full, pull the tails to close the mouth. Tie the heads or weave into the basket to seal. Tie the tails to secure.




For ketupat bawang, the onion-shaped version, vary the steps after weaving loops from right hand across to left hand and turning the basket over with the tails to the top right.

Instead of weaving the horizontal tail (yellow), weave the vertical tail (green) across the top and down the left side.

Flip and rotate the basket around so that the remaining tail (yellow) is vertical and to the top right. Weave the tail (yellow) across the top and down the left side to meet up with the other tail (green).

Rotate the basket so that the heads are vertical and the tails hang down. Weave each head across the top to meet in the middle. When completed the heads form the base of the onion. Tighten and adjust.

There you have it, ketupat baskets to impress diners. It takes 3 hours, depending on size, to cook ketupat rice in boiling water.

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Cubic Rice Noodles

Cubic noodles brought awe to Australian TV watching households after Masterchef Poh Ling Yeow thrilled judges with her intriguing black cubic noodles made using squid ink. Masterchef Poh served her winning dish with fried snapper, preserved mustard greens and caviar in a white stock.

Penang cubic noodles, known as char kuih kark (with many variations of spelling depending on Chinese dialect group), act as a poor man's version of the daikon rice cakes served in dim sum restaurants: hawkers stalls make the noodles without daikon.

Here is a recipe to make your own cubic noodles, for use in your noodle or pasta dishes:

Ingredients:

150 g (1 cup) rice flour
20 g (1-2 tablespoons) black glutinous rice, tapioca starch, wheat starch, or cornstarch
1 tablespoon oil (preferable flavoured)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon onion powder, optional
150 mL lukewarm water
350 mL boiling water


Method:

Blend the flour, starch, oil and seasoning with lukewarm water into a smooth paste.

While stirring add the boiling water to par-cook the batter to help prevent the flour settling during cooking. If the batter has not thickened enough to leave thick trails, either gently heat on a stove or microwave on high in 10 sec bursts until the consistency is achieved.

Pour the batter into a wet ceramic lasagne dish measuring 20 cm by 30 cm. The batter is enough for a 1-cm thick noodle sheet.

Steam for 30-45 minutes until set. On cooking, the batter darkens and the surface feels firm. To cook by microwave, cover the dish with plastic wrap. Set power to 30% (medium low) and cook for 20-30 minutes.

Let cool for at least 15 minutes to stiffen before using. Cut into 1 cm cubes. For frying, chill the noodles, preferably overnight.


... pan fried black and white cubic rice noodles with omelette, shitake, coriander and chilli

Notes:

The starch improves the texture by adding softness and/or chewiness. Rice on its own gives a somewhat starchy mouth feel. Adjust the ratio of rice to starch to suit your personal preference.

Some recipes call for kan sui (lye water) to add a springy texture, or borax to prevent stickiness, add gloss and improve flexibility. Others suggest 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon baking soda per cup of flour as a substitute for kan sui and borax.

The flour to water weight ratio is 1:3, or volume ratio 1:2 (1 cup flour to 2 cups water).

Simple recipe for sheet and cubic rice noodles 40% rice flour, 40% cornstarch, 20% tapioca starch, 300-350% FWB warm water. Make a slurry and steam.

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Pie Night

Noodle Cook slaves over the oven making a 2 course meal for none other than the world's worst food critic, aka John the villain in this blog, when Masterchef appears on TV with the pie challenge. Coincidental? Noodle Cook who misses out on the audition after the pot incident, produces a dozen of potato marsala pies, better known as curry puffs, and an apple tarte tatin in under 2 hours.

After watching the TV pie challenge, John decides Noodle Cook's potato marsala pies the winner. However, the apple tart, which looks good (like always), fails as the apples lack acidity. The tart tastes nothing like Canadian apple pie made with maple syrup.

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Apple Tarte Tatin

A quintessential upsidedown tart that transforms the humble apple into a haute French restaurant dessert.



To make apple tarte tatin, cook fresh crispy new season apples in a skillet with butter and caramelized sugar, cover with a rich shortbread shortcrust pastry, and then bake in an oven. Invert onto a plate for serving.



Traditionally a very short, crumbly buttery shortcrust pastry with juicy apples in a rich luscious toffee sauce, served with cream or ice-cream, however modern versions come in puff pastry.



Check out this version of apple tarte tatin.

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Breakfast Special - Baked Beans and Sausages

Homestyle borlotti beans and cherry tomatoes in a wholesome bacon and fresh tomato sauce served with slow cooked sausages. The perfect hearty breakfast for cold winter mornings.

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Chocolate Cream Tart

A decadent dark bitter-sweet chocolate ganache in a delicate salted chocolate shortcrust pastry shell. Serve with fresh cream, ice cream or sabayon.

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Spanish Paella

The crispy crust from the paella pan gives the dish its Spanish authenticity. The crust forms on turning up the heat to medium after cooking the rice using the absorption method. The other way of forming the crust is to cook by the evaporation method, like a risotto, on medium to high heat while moving the pan around.

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Roasted Pig Head - Masterchef Australia 2009

An impressive crispy roasted pig head...

A very impressive dish from Chris! - Masterchef Australia 2009

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Cucumber Carpaccio

Paper thin slices of cucumber served with olive oil and lemon dressing. Simple, but beautifully effective salad, achieved with a quality sharp knife.

Check out King of Knives for their range of top brands at discounted prices, from budget Victorinox to Shun and Wusthof. This is the place where the local culinary school (TAFE) sends their commercial cookery students.

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