Bread baking trial I

Lately I have this craving for superb artisan bread with the crispy crust and soft chewy interior. These type of breads are soo easily found in Taiwan at either Maison Kayser or Johan's. ARRRGG I miss those good old days with all kinds of foods at hand's reach!

Anyway been raising my little sourdough starter baby for a couple of weeks now. My first test recipe is the King Arthur's Rustic Sourdough Bread.

The crust did not come out as crunchy as I wanted, maybe it was the olives that I added...

Maybe what I wanted was more of a baguette feel, so I again tried one of King Arthur's Ultimate Sourdough Baguettes. I subbed 1 TBS of honey instead of the sugar.

OH YEAH! Exactly what I wanted, the crust I mean. I do not own baking stone so I just line mine on parchment paper on my oven rack. 

2 problems:

1. I am still trying to create air holes with no success yet. *sigh* Trust me, my dough is sooo slack that I can not form them into any shape but a huge slop as it sticks to everything it touches. Don't think it's my sourdough starter as the bread does raise to more than twice it's size and no, I do not flatten it as I do not even touch them after 1st rise.

2. I can't seem to get them off the baking sheet that I spray with oil :( gotta cut off the botton of my bread.

Mr. Wu @ Estacion Central

There are hundreds if not thousands of Chinese restaurants here in Chile, right a little bit lower than the number of Japanese restaurants here. Not all Japanese restaurants are really Japanese, same goes for the Chinese restaurants.

I have not been to too many Chinese restaurants to tell how they differ, but according to my husband Mumu who's been living here for over 10years now, "Those are for the local people" meaning it's for Chilean, not Chinese. On this line, there are only around 5 restaurants falls in the real-Chinese restaurant, Mr. Wu being the most frequent visited by us as it is the closest to Mumu' store.

Mumu's fav. dish is noodle soup and fried pork, but I am a big fan of HOT foods and that is what we ordered that day for lunch. The famous HOT for Chinese is not just hot-pepper hot but actually a combination of spices that produces a hot AND numb taste, one of the main spice being Sichuan Pepper.

 

 Spicy Tofu (Mala-Tofu)

Spicy Fish Soup (this is actually not a drinkable soup, but fish soaked in a hot pepper oil soup)

Main ingredients: Fish, soybean, green bean noodle, celery.

These are what we order that day, Tofu, Fish, Sour and spice soup, Stir fried veggie.

The price here is not expensive at all, most dishes are around CLP2,000~3,000. The fish cost more and it's around CLP6,000.

This place offers special Chinese breakfast on Sunday (starting at around 10:30) with various small dishes of snacks. Highly recommended!

The Daring Cooks July 2010 Challenge: Nut Butters

The July 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by Margie of More Please and Natashya of Living in the Kitchen with Puppies. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make their own nut butter from scratch, and use the nut butter in a recipe. Their sources include Better with Nut Butter by Cooking Light Magazine, Asian Noodles by Nina Simonds, and Food Network online.

And I am 1 day late from posting!

This month's challenge was not really a cooking challenge but rather a laziness challenge for me. As Taiwanese, we eat lots of savory nut foods such as sesame cold noodle,  chicken rice noodle salad, pork bums with sesame paste, salmon with walnut paste, etc. But as days get colder down here Chile, I am more lazy than ever!

I bought walnut, peanut, almond, sesame, soy beans... thinking that I'll make it a great month... but instead, we've only ate 2 dishes, actually, it's a dish and a drink.

Peanut butter (this yields 1 1/2 cup of peanut butter)
2 cups of peanut (toasted, no salt and no skin)
2 Tbsp of veg. oil. (I used grape seed oil and you may add more if you want it creamier)
1 tsp of salt (or more to taste)

Put everything in blender and blend for 1 min. Be careful as it might over heat the motor so you could probably blend it "Rum-Ruuumm-Rummm" and so on instead of "Ruuuuuuuummmmmmm"






Chinese shrimp and veggie fried noodle w/ peanut butter (2~3 serving)
2 rings of noodle (chinese white noodle or any flat noodle) 
200 g raw shrimp shelled and move the digestive track at it's back.
1/2 cup celery
1/2 cup carrot
1 cup bell pepper (any colour is fine, mix of colour is best)
1/2 cup mushroom (preferably shitake mushroom)
1 Tbsp salt
1 Tbsp rice wine or white wine
2 Tbsp of veg. oil
optional: 1 spicy red pepper (small finger size)


Nut sauce:
2 Tbsp peanut butter (or any nut butter)
1 Tsp soysauce
1 Tsp vinegar
Mix well.

1. Cook noodle according to package instruction
2. Marinade shrimp with wine and 1/2 tbsp salt
3. Cut all veggies to finger bite size (may want to julienne cut carrot as it takes longer to cook)

4. Heat pan on high heat until hot (around 15sec for me) and pour in the veg. oil
5. Pour in marinaded shrimp with it's sauce (wine) and flip when one side is red.
6. Pour in all the cut up veggies right after you 1st flip the shrimp so that the veggies are on top of the shrimp. Please note that if you over cook the shrimp too much, it will be a bit too chewy and not as fresh-sweet). Add salt and stir fry for 1 min or until the veggies reach the texture that you prefer (crunchy=30min or soft>1min).
7. By now the noodles should be cooked and drained, stir them in with the veggies and shrimp.Toss until well blended and turn off the heat.
8. Serve on plate and top with nut sauce.

Multi-Nut drink:
2 tsp sesame paste
1 tsp almond paste
1 tsp peanut butter paste
1 Tbsp sugar
1 cup hot soymilk
Mix and add more sugar if you prefer it sweeter as nuts are a bit sweet already.