Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Cooking Alaskan King Crab Legs for Dummies

Quick dinner blogpost on Cooking Alaskan King Crab Legs for Dummies!

The darling and I were out window shopping, and chanced upon a frozen pack of four King Crab Legs. Not exactly sure if the crab's from Alaska or perhaps from Japan's northern waters, but since it was priced at an almost 40% discount, we decided on a whim and fancy just to buy it and bring it home for dinner. Without knowing a single thing about cooking crab!

Steamed King Crab Legs

Anyways it turned out to be really easy. Unless you know for sure you're buying a whole, raw, King Crab, any frozen King Crab legs you buy have almost certainly been cooked prior to freezing. So we don't actually need to cook the crab, just reheat it.

First step - the defrosting, which you can do either by leaving the crab legs in the fridge overnight, or soaked in tap water in a sealed bag. It's best not to soak the legs directly in water as the water gets into the shells and soaks into the flesh.

Steamed King Crab Legs

There's a few different methods of reheating - microwave, oven - but we decided to just steam it. It took a mere 5 minutes of steaming over a medium-low flame for the meat to be warm all the way through - once you can smell the crab aroma wafting out of the steamer, it's done.

Steamed King Crab Legs

From there use a pair of kitchen scissors to cut open the shells and take out the luscious meat. The flesh is already sweet and a little salty, so not much condiments needed - we decided to play it simple and just add some melted butter and freshly cracked black pepper, paired with Japanese Koshihikari rice with vegetable-themed furikake (rice seasonings). Lovely.

So hopefully this post helps if you fancy buying some crab legs in the future - no need to worry, it's quick, simple and no-brainer to reheat the legs - the flesh of the King Crab legs is a strong enough ingredient to basically stand on its' own without needing any fancy cooking skills!

Saturday, May 10, 2014

Banana Chocolate Muffins / Cupcakes Recipe

This is definately right recipe to fit the mildly sweet category of taste buds. Very moist too!



Dry Ingredients
160g Fine Sugar
130g Cake Flour
35g unsweeten Cocoa Powder
0.75 teaspoon Baking Powder
0.75 teaspoon Baking Soda
0.25 teaspoon Fine Salt

Wet Ingredients
1 Egg
150g Banana (without skin)
120ml Warm Water
60ml Milk
60ml Olive Oil
0.75 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

Step 1 Preheat oven to 180°C.
Step 2 Line 12 regular-sized muffin cups with paper liners or use muffin cups.
Step 3 In a large bowl whisk together the Dry Ingredients and set aside.
Step 4 In another large bowl, whisk together the Wet Ingredients.
Step 5 Add the Wet Ingredients to the Dry Ingredients and stir until combined. This recipe batter is quite thin.
Step 6 Fill the muffin cup with the batter about 3/4 full
Step 7 Bake for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean.
Step 8 Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack.


Suggested is to Frost with Chocolate Ganache Frosting to turn it into a cupcake.

Click here for our blog page Baking Classes for more recipes. Hope you will be inspired~

Thursday, May 8, 2014

Tortilla Wrap Pizza Mix & Match Topping Ideas

This is getting really popular and now it's time for us to join in the fun and share the type of pizza we created! It's so simple, it's easier then ABC kind of similar to thin crust pizza.

Basic steps are:
1. Pre-heat oven at 200°C, top and bottom.
2. Prepare the toppings and set aside.
3. Place Tortilla Wrap on a baking pan
4. Spread on base sauce.
5. Top with the prepared toppings.
6. Sprinkle generously with Mozzarella Cheese / Pizza Cheese. (Approx 60g)
7. Bake for 8-9 minutes, until the cheese has melted and the base is crisp.
8. Cut into pizza slices and serve.

Ham & Raisins Pizza
Mayonnaise as based sauce
3 sliced of Ham
1 tablespoon of Raisins

Crabstick, Tuna Double Melt a.k.a Cheese Burst Pizza
Alfredo as based sauce
2 Crabsticks sliced 0.5cm thick
1.5 tablespoons Tuna (Canned in water drained)
2 Tortilla Wrap
2 portions of Grated Cheese

For the Double Melt a.k.a Cheese Burst, place one wrap sprinkle Grated Cheese generously place the next wrap on top.

Pepperoni Pizza
Tomato Puree as base sauce
9 to 10 slices of Pepperoni a.k.a. Salami (as you can see 6 looks miserable.

Deary and me had an arguement on cheese should be on top of below. Top looks more pretty definately! Doesn't matter because it taste the same.


We'll be posting more of our mix and match topping as we explore!

Click here for our blog page Cooking Classes for more recipes. Hope you will be inspired~

Sunday, May 4, 2014

Japanese Chashu a.k.a. Marinated Braised Pork Belly for Ramen

Tonkotsu ramen served with japanese chashu and ajitsuke tamago is one of our favourite Japanese food. We manage to find instant ramen available on the supermarket shelves couldn't resist but to try them out! With it sitting in our drawer, we decided we go all out and try to make our own chashu. We did some research on a few recipes available online and here is our recipe.



Ingredients
1kg rolled Pork Belly
125ml Soy Sauce
250ml Sake
250ml Mirin
250ml Water
6 teaspoons of Sugar
6 2" long Scallion
6 cloves of Garlic
2" knob of roughly sliced Ginger
6 halved Shallots

If you have bought Pork Belly not is not rolled yet, lay it skin side down and roll up and tightly secure the roll with roasting string.

Pre-heat over at 135°C. Combine and mix Soy Sauce, Sake, Mirin, Water, Sugar. Place in the rolled Pork Belly and scatter Scallion, Garlic, Ginger, Shallots around the rolled Pork Belly.


Cover with alluminium foil but leave a slight gap at one corner.


Transfer to oven to cook for 3 to 4 hours. Turning it every 30 to 45 mins.


How to know if your Chashu is done? Test it with a cake tester or a thin knife it should be easily insert.

Remove the Pork Belly and let it cool. When it's slightly cool to handle pre-slice the Chashu and let it completely cool before storing.
If consuming within 1-2days, store in a airtight container and put it in the fridge.
If comsuming within less then a month, store consumable portions in zip lock bags and put it in the freezer.


Before Consuming, drizzle some left over stored chashu sauce then blowtorch both sides, place the desire slices of chashu on top of the hot ramen that is prepared and immediately serve.

Or, you can warm up some leftover stored chashy sauce and pan fry them to give some caramelization of the sause to the chashu.

Enjoy~!!!

Lesson Learnt: Choose your Pork Belly wisely, the best pork belly we tried is Australian Pork which was used in our previous experimental trial. We do prefer skinless Pork Belly.

Click here for our blog page Cooking Classes for more recipes. Hope you will be inspired~

Friday, May 2, 2014

Baked Bacon Ham Spinash Cream Sauce Rice! Ongoing extra added Mix and Match Ideas

Always think this very tedious to make this but it's one of the simple and fast! Anyone can get it done in 20mins or 30mins.


Ingredients
2 bowls of Rice in Baking Bowls
4 pieces of Bacon Strips
6 pieces of Ham
3 handful of Spinach leaves
230g / approx half a bottle of Leggo's Alfredo Creamy Pasta Sauce
100ml Water
80g Grated Mozzrella Cheese



Preheat over at 190°C.

Heat pan and stir fry the bacon until it is half cooked. Then add in the Ham and stir fry until semi cook. Pour in the Alfredo Sauce and Water, combine well and bring it to a boil. Turn off the fire mix in the Spinach and divide it equally on top of the rice bowls prepared.


Top generously with grated Mozzrella Cheese and put in the oven to bake for 10mins.............


....... or until the top is slightly browned.

Do warn your family members to BECAREFUL the bowls are extremely hot!

Enjoy~!!!

Lesson Learnt: Reason why we turn off the fire and mix in the spinach only without cooking over the fire is to avoid the spinach from overcooking and turning in to dirty green dead color.

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We'll be adding our creations: Good and bad ideas. All here to share! Will update more soon..



Click here for our blog page Cooking Classes for more recipes. Hope you will be inspired~