Baked Soy-bean Paste Salmon Steak

I love salmon!!! Esp. RAWWWW! They have a distinctive taste unlike other fish. I love fish taste. quite like fishy smell too. :-P

Salmon's supposedly packed with Omega-3 that's really good for cholesterol control. Ever since I found out thru Sie Ong that TESCO sells them for a rather reasonable price [37.90 CZK per 100 grams for salmon with skin, 39.90 CZK per 100 grams for salmon without skin...and sometimes, they even have discounts :-D ], I have been buying them like crazy...at one point, I was eating salmon every week! I could even eat it everyday! But then I read from some websites that says the accumulation of toxic chemicals in salmons esp. in farmed salmons. I have no idea whether the salmons from TESCO is farmed or wild. But that stopped me from going crazy over salmon. Now I buy them maybe once a month.


Salmon's really easy to work with. Because I love the fish taste, I wouldn't want to do anything that covers it up too much. This is one of the recipe I have experimented with.

Ingredients: 

• Salmon; 200grams
• Soy Bean Paste
• Salt
• Chilli Powder
• Instant Mashed Potato Powder XD
• Peas
• Broccoli
• Crab Sticks
• Butter/ Margarine
• Pepper

 Method:

1. Preheat oven to 150 - 200 Celcius
2. Descale the salmon skin
3. Rub on soy bean paste, chilli powder and pepper. 
4. Rub salt on skin
5. Add oil into pan
6. Dump into oven and bake for roughly 10 minutes [*I don't like my salmon overcooked :-P]
7. For the sides; melt a lump of butter/ margarine on pan. Add peas, broccoli and crab sticks to it. 
8. Season with salt and pepper
9. Follow instruction on the box of your instant mashed potatoes :-P

Seasoning with chili powder, pepper, salt, soy bean pasta

All done!

With the side dishes

The foil adds a touch of finesse to the overall look, doesn't it? But it was unintentional. It's just that the salmon skin is stuck to the foil and I didn't want to waste it. So I just transfer it from the baking pan to my plate and scrape them all later. XD

Verdict: 

I am very biased when it comes to salmon dishes. Salmon just taste good as it is ie. without any seasoning ala sashimi. With this recipe, I'd say it gives a flavouring to the salmon without making the salmon lose its original salmon-ness. :-P

Best Birthday Cake ever: Lemon Cake

This is the first home-baked birthday cake I've gotten! So pretty and delicious!

I just have to show this off! Or actually help my friend; Jannik who baked it, show it off....haha. I could hardly believe that he really, really BAKED it! I don't know how many times I actually voice my disbelief to him....:-P Never thought that he could bake. In truth, I am really very touched by his effort. :-)

The cute little decorations! 

I actually have issues about eating figurine-shaped food. :-P Ridiculous, I know! This is my first attempt in making myself eat them. I cheated by closing my eyes when I put them in! :-P

Had it for breakfast throughout the week

The recipe he used was in German. I translated using google translator. ^_^

Ingredients:

• 200 grams Cream 
• 180 grams Sugar 
• 240 grams Flour 
• 1 packet Vanilla Sugar 
• 1 packet Baking Powder 
• 4 Eggs 
• 1 tsp Lemon Peel 
• 1 tsp Lemon Flavoring ** [1 tsp of mixed lemon peel and lemon flavoring?? or 1 tsp of each?? Clarify with him]
• 30 grams Powdered Sugar 
• 2 tsp Lemon Juice

 ** He got these decorations from Kaufland

Methods:

1. This lemon cake can be easily and quickly prepared.  
2. One need only 1 cup of cream (200 g) into a bowl.  
3. With the clean cup cream you can measure the other ingredients, if you do not have scales to weigh.  
4. In the event you are still 1 cup sugar (180 g), 2 cups flour (240 g) vanilla sugar, baking powder, eggs, lemon peel and a few drops of lemon flavor to the cream.
5. Stir well until a thin dough.  
6. Butter is not needed and only to grease the loaf pan.  
7. Pour the dough in a preheated oven at 180 degrees about 50-60 minutes on the middle rail bake.  
8. 10 minutes to cool in the mold.  
9. Then throw on a grill and allow to cool completely.  
10. Powdered sugar with lemon juice so much stir until a plump white sugar cream.  
11. Brush the cold lemon cake with it.  

** Hahaha....funny translation right? More or less understandable I think!

Verdicts:

From my experience, the cake can be stored in the fridge for nearly a week. I was slowly savoring it throughout the week. All 5 of us plus Jaysal and Sie Ong tried it and all praised its taste, texture and deco! The cake is not too dry, not too moist. Just the right bite. Tastewise, it's so rich with lemon taste. 

 

* Thumbs Up!* We have discovered a cake decorator and baker in town! 

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Thank you again, Jannik for this lovely and memorable gift! :-D

Looking forward to more of your baked goods! 

Hehehehehe...

Cornflakes Cookies

For the 2010 Chinese New Year, I thought of trying my hands at baking some CNY cookies. I wanted a really, really simple-no-way-anything-could-go-wrong kind of recipe. Cornflakes cookies popped out in quite a number of blogs...I basically mixed and match the 2 recipes I got from Peng's Kitchen and bakebakebake. Followed the ingredients list which was easiest for me to get and the instructions easiest to follow!

Before putting into the oven

Voila! It's done

See, I don't have any weighing machines for baking. So I found the ingredient list from Peng's kitchen easier to follow in regards to portioning; cos the butter I bought is 250grms, so I divided that visually  by 5 and then further by another 5...so I got my 60grms. Of course, I could have saved myself the trouble and just chuck the whole butter in...but when I experiment, I like to do it in small portion so I don't waste too much. :-P

Ingredients [modified from Peng's Kitchen]:

• 60gm Butter
• 50ml Honey [measured this amount also by visually dividing my bottle of honey ^_^]
• 1 tbsp Sugar
• 1/4 tsp Salt
• Cornflakes[I just chucked in how much I felt like...hehe]
• Color flakes

 Method [followed mostly bakebakebake]:

1. Preheat oven to 150°c
2. Melt butter, sugar, salt and honey in a large wok
3. When everything is melted, turn off heat. Mix in the cornflakes...crush them a bit
4. Coat the cornflakes well with the melted mixture
5. Spoon them into cookie cups; arranged on an oven tray
6. Sprinkle color flakes on top of them
7. Put them into the oven for 5 - 10 minutes*
8. Let cool before eating them or storing

* When I first used 10 minutes, my cookies almost got burned. According to my friend; Sie Ong, you have to check the color occasionally to see if it's done.He also recommended not to use cookie cups....it would be cheaper.
** Made a box each for my landlord's family and also the Adalbertinum Chinese Restaurant aunt's family ^_^

Very happy with my first attempt at baking cookies. :-) Since my first time, I have baked these twice already.