Archive wine | The Sugar Bar

Jul 27 2008

Matcha Layer Cake, White Chocolate Cream and Plum Wine Glaze

Put bag down. Remove groceries from shopping bags and place onto appropriate shelves of pantry. Open fridge. Arrange selected ingredients into a neat row on island top. Recipe. This wasn’t in the least robotic movement but rather quick chop-chop actions executed with precision — a race against time!

After some weekend shopping in town and an iced tea with a book whilst waiting for Mum’s Japanese lesson to end, I was all geared up for some intensive kitchen affair. Let’s just say I devoted about 5 hours in the kitchen today to prepare pudding and the best Sunday roast I could ever offer all in the spirit of the blessed Sunday. To add to that, I’m officially off my office attachment and this breath of fresh air (not that I didn’t enjoy the overall experience in the office and meeting my fellow colleagues) has suddenly infused my muscles with more energy and I don’t feel the least tired after dishing up, cleaning up, washing up. Pimm’s and iced lemon tea was a fantastic idea as well — bet that really gave me quite the energy boost for the afternoon. Roast dinner was pretty good. I think I might’ve outdone myself, this time round cooking the carrots under the chicken to cook in the chicken’s onion, garlic, lemon and rosemary-infused juices. The cajun-spiced roast potatoes were just beautiful, considering I used U.S Russet potatoes and the roast vegetables were all nicely golden-brown and sweet from the over-onion-age. The gravy was made from all the leftover scrapings off the roasting tray, white wine, Worcestershire sauce, freshly ground black pepper and some cornflour.

Well, what comes next you would know is something green. I think right about now, someone would be just bouncing off the walls wanting to tell me to stop this matcha obsession. Gee. You’re totally right. I mean like how much of my life can this humble green powder actually take up? Plenty; and only a wally brain would want to forsake this lovely ingredient.

It seems that matcha is no longer the rave. To me, (since green tea has always been around in this country and Japanese influence since before independence – hey, we were under the Japanese Occupation) it’s less a rave now but more evidently a part of our lives and culture. You see O-cha shops everywhere offering green tea lattes, matcha ice cream and beautifully presented sweets and puds (this I can’t resist). Ceremony-grade matcha and tea ceremony equipment seem to be readily available. Everyone on the street talks about it — sometimes in one of those wide-eyed, amazed fashion and sometimes in that motherly you-should-eat-your-greens,-it’s-good-for-your-health way.

I’m still on the lookout for a near-authentic Japanese teahouse so I can pick up some tips and proper skills (not to forget I need to return to a Chinese teahouse to brush up on my amateur tea-making skills — gosh am I so lacking). While that has yet to happen, I spend my time basking in the fact that I can enjoy matcha and green tea and all my other favourite teas to maximum satisfaction. Ever since there was that Daring Bakers’ Opera Cake event, I was so tempted to try my hand at it. Of course, I didn’t have much time to spare for an opera cake — what with the joconde, buttercream, ganache, sponge and glaze layers. It is a lovely French sweet I’d love to stuff my face with; a solitary affair, preferably in the dark and soundproof room but when it comes to making it, I would really give a word of warning that my lazy ass will never agree to such culinary commitment.

On that note, my white chocolate ganache failed as well. Let’s just say I’d blasted the radio and got a little carried away with my whisk and singing as I rocked my lungs out to the sounds of 3 Doors Down to the point where my heavy cream started to split and curdle like there was no tomorrow. God, it was beautiful. The ganache was such a mess I had no choice but to title it ‘White Chocolate Cream’ or would ‘White Chocolate Melty Mush’ be more apt?

Because I was a little strapped for time and I knew I wouldn’t have the patience to stand about all day in the kitchen taking care of cake layers and cream layers, etc. I decided to stick to a sponge layer and “ganache” (lol, I giggle) and a simple plum wine glaze. That chopped things up easy peasy for me and didn’t require much brainwork. In fact, if you’ve stuck with my blog long enough, you realize when it comes to cooking, strangely I hate to think much. It’s awful how lazy I get when it comes to cooking and blimey, I call myself a food-lover and ultimate baking fan. The horror, the horror (of my true personality, that is).

This recipe is quite a mess as I’ve taken bits from Kevin’s Green Tea and White Chocolate Opera Cake recipe. I drooled over this quite a bit and really fancied having a slice of it myself. I’m afraid I haven’t really done this recipe justice but the results weren’t too bad. All the flavours were great. The sponge cake could definitely have been a little less rubbery and fluffier but heck, pudding definitely wasn’t the star of the show tonight. The plum wine glaze was good. Sexy. You couldn’t really taste much of it since I only used 2 tablespoons of it (didn’t want to mislead people into thinking I drink in the day — although I did) but the smell of it as you stirred the warm cream was nose-orgasmic, would that be the word? Anyway, there was always Mum’s frozen Daifukus after the cake to sweep up whatever bits were found wanting and sweeten up the tastebuds the right way up. No biggie.

Matcha Layer Cake
Ingredients

(directions are taken from Kevin’s Closet Cooking blog)
Line a 12 1/2 inch by 15 1/2 inch jelly roll pan with parchment and grease it with butter.
Beat the egg whites in a bowl until they form soft peaks.
Add the sugar and beat until the peaks are stiff and glossy.
Beat the almonds, icing sugar, matcha and eggs in another bowl until light and voluminous.
Add the flour and beat until the flour is just combined.
Fold the meringue into the almond mixture.
Fold in the butter.
Pour the batter into the pan.
Bake in a preheated 425F oven until lightly browned and just springy to the touch, about 5-9 minutes.
Run a knife along the edges to loosen the cake form the pan.
Cover the cake with parchment paper, flip and unmold the cake.
Peel of the parchments paper flip and cover the cake while it cools.

White Chocolate Cream
Ingredients

Place chopped chocolate in a heatproof bowl.
Heat heavy cream and butter in a heavy-based saucepan on low heat until it just starts to boil. You can tell when it starts to bubble around the edges of the pan. Remove from heat and pour over the chocolate. Leave for 30 seconds then use a wire whisk to whisk till smooth. Set aside to cool a little.
Save half of this mixture for the glaze.
Whisk 120ml cream till it forms stiff peaks then fold into cool ganache mixture.

**don’t know if this will work for you — mine pretty much turned into tasty mush LOL. I don’t usually make such terrible mistakes. Man. Blame the rocker in me. Jokes.

Plum Wine Glaze
Ingredients

Whisk ingredients together and set aside.

Sugar Syrup
Ingredients

Dissolve sugar in water. Set aside. This will be used atop sponge layers when assembling the cake.

For instructions on assembling the cake, please click on the link above before the recipe which will take you to Kevin’s blog for better directions. Mine was a very haphazard, freeze and slab on freeze and slab on event. Not exactly a method with finesse.

No matter. I’m still in a fine mood and I’m off to watch the telly. It’s the beginning of another week tomorrow but I’m pretty excited to begin work at The Flaming Queen. Selling candles at Palais Renaissance — gosh that’s well luxurious!

18 comments | posted in French, Japanese, cakes, chocolate, sweets, tea, wine

Jun 12 2008

Vegetarian Yakisoba with Ebi Sakamushi

Although it’s technically our summer holiday, I’ve been busy. And no, it isn’t just socializing. It’s about packing, buying presents, shopping for themed party costumes, sorting out next year’s rent and planning moving logistics. It’s slightly crazy and ‘eating’ away at my time for cooking and baking. But then again, I did spend the whole of last week FEASTING. And by feasting I really mean gorging myself on bbq after bbq, pizza express, Strada at The Mailbox, loads of gelati from Morelli’s, that kinda thing. Unfortunately, all that fantastic indulgence has resulted in a pot belly and a lack of posts on my blog.

Due to the parties and other preoccupations such as learning to deejay from Alex (as if I really did learn), nearly crashing his Ferrari laptop, sunbathing, playing pseudo volleyball,etc. I have not been catching up enough with the food blogosphere. Lots of catching up to do indeed.

I have received a couple of emails about the Beauty and the Feast. Again, thank you all who participated. I’ll think about whether I’ll continue the challenge. I’m not too sure about it as it was pretty much a once-off thing. Let me know what you think and I’ll see how it goes, depending on the response.

Trying to do quickcook meals is the new cool and highly essential when you can hardly find time to sleep and housekeep because of a busy schedule. So here’s a post dedicated to Japan’s fast food! At least I think it is since I used to see boxes of yakisoba loads at train stations for quick takeaways and in my mind, that’s definitely ‘fast’ food.
I love yakisoba. Tasty and really quick to make. The sauce is really the essential bit that marries everything together. If I’m not wrong, yakisoba sauce is quite easy to find pre-made in bottles. I looked through some recipes online for yakisoba sauce and they required oyster sauce which gives fantastic flavour. I’m sure you can find vegetarian oyster sauces made with, what was it, mushrooms? But I’m not too sure if it’ll taste exactly the same as the real thing. Doubt it. I’ve chose to go for a vegetarian yakisoba sauce, not because I’m iffy with oyster sauce. I love it! But I don’t have any in my pantry. I haven’t really tried to make traditional yakisoba by using all the right ingredients but have instead thrown it all together with what I have lying around and that’s bordering on rotten.

Don’t be put off by the name ebi sakamushi either. It is so simple and flavourful and hardly requires any thinking. It is basically sake-steamed prawns. You can use drinking or cooking sake. Either way it gives off a lovely smell and infuses the prawns in a sweetness, enhancing its naturally sweet flesh with tinges of malty rice flavour as well. I really like this and makes a great appetizer too. I placed the prawns in paper nut cups and popped them into a bamboo steamer which made them easy to serve out onto individual plates. This also helped the prawns to cook in their own juice without the sake flowing away.

Here’s a recipe that yields 2-3 servings.

Vegetarian Yakisoba with Ebi Sakamushi
Ingredients

For the vegetarian yakisoba sauce:

For ebi sakamushi:

To prepare the sauce first, whisk all ingredients together in a bowl and set aside.

Now cook the noodles in hot water. Once cooked, run under cold water and set aside. You can leave them soaked in cold water to prevent them from sticking.

Heat some oil in a large frying pan. Golden brown the onions, then add all the vegetables and stirfry. Next, add the soba noodles and the yakisoba sauce. Fry until all the sauce has been absorbed into the noodles. It might get a little sticky due to the sugar caramelizing but that’s fine. If you prefer not to have your noodles uber sauced-up, you can use about 2/3 of the prepared sauce and fry on high heat.

For the ebi sakamushi, simply place prawns in nut cups and pour the sake over the prawns into the cup. Steam until prawns are cooked through and bright pink.

Serve noodles with sesame seeds, gari pickles (optional) and the prawns on the side.

16 comments | posted in Chinese, Japanese, alcohol, noodles, savoury, seafood, vegetables, wine

May 30 2008

Garlic Shiitake & Gari Soba with Sweet Green Tea Sauce

Thank God it’s Friday.

Not that it makes much of a difference, since (why?) we’re on holiday and officially worry-free from exams. This weekend, Hans and I are the only ones left in the house; so begins our crazy marathon of baking and cooking, feasting and merry-making (no innuendos there). Not only do we deserve this because of the hard work we’ve put in, but after a “WE’VE BEEN BROKEN INTO” scare, it’s only natural to need comfort food.

Have no fear. We weren’t broken into but both the front door and the porch door were foolishly left ajar and coming home to that was a bit of a shock. What a miracle we weren’t since we don’t live on one of the safest roads in Selly Oak.

Comfort food this was with that lovely sweet sauce. It is a rather thick sauce so you don’t need much for a serving of soba. Don’t expect it to be a very green tea-ish sauce either as this is made not with sencha but with green tea cooking sprinkles. I didn’t do much with the mushrooms as shiitake on their own have a very distinctive flavour.

Right then. Hans and I have to get back to what’s cooking in the oven.

Here serves 2.

Garlic Shiitake & Gari Soba with Sweet Green Tea Sauce
Ingredients

The noodles take about 5-7min to cook so get started on your sauce first.
Whisk all the ingredients together, except for the green tea cooking sprinkles and hot water. Then in a heavy-based saucepan, heat the mixture and stir slowly on low heat. In a small bowl, mix together the green tea sprinkles with hot water and let it sit for about a minute. Add this to the saucepan and leave it to reduce a little for 2-3min. Then cut the heat and set aside.

Cook the soba noodles.

In a frying pan, fry the garlic till nearly golden brown. Then sautée the mushrooms. When cooked, add a few drops of sesame oil. Stir and then set aside.

When the soba is ready, drain the water and run some cold water over it to stop the cooking and keep the noodles cold. Place noodles in bowl. Place gari pickles on top, followed by garlic fried shiitake mushrooms. Drizzle about 2 tbs of sweet sauce over it and garnish with sesame seeds.

6 comments | posted in English, Japanese, ginger, mushrooms, noodles, nuts, savoury, tea, vegetables, wine