Pizza Revelation

Say goodbye to instant noodles and junk food and waste that calorie on better food. Here comes the Good'Ol pasta and pizza revelation. I always feel that having those 2 in one seating is always a pleasure. I admit I wasn't really a big fan of pizza after those years when I started to lose all my baby fats haha.. Maybe psychological thinking played a part. It could be the case. But fact is, those thick crusted pizzas did not blow me away. Less is more and up till today, I still love those skinny pizzas. I'm in lurvee with them. 

Cooking for the family is always a joy. Though yes, getting hard fried on messing up the kitchen is another story. Here comes the birth of vodka and mushroom penne. Sorry I cheated. The Vodka sauce was imported from the states and surprisingly it managed to withstand the long hauled journey from west to east. It came out in one fine piece.. 

Vodka Penne with mushrooms

Ingredients:

- One bottle of Vodka pasta sauce

- Some white button mushrooms and portobello ( Um yums!. It makes sense now that I talked about mushrooms in my previous post) 

- Onions

-Penne

-chilli padi ( optional)

1)  Cook Penne in a pot of boiling water till al dente. Drain and set aside. Best to wash with cold water to stop the cooking process

2) Prepare the awesome sauce- First fry onions in some olive oil till soft. Toss in the mushrooms. Add the sauce

3) Scoop desired amount of sauce onto penne and sprinkle with your fav herb and black pepper.. Oh yes I forgot.. I added in some chilli padi to the sauce for extra OoHmmpp and to rise up the heat level. 

Forgive the ugly presentation and photos. We were ALL tooo hungry. 

Now comes the fun part. Decorating your own pizza! Decorating pizzas are a form of art. It's a time to get creative and creating that pizza you have been dreaming forever. Home made pizzas are great cuz you get to add in the desired ingredients in any amount that pleases you... It sure is satisfying.. TRUST ME! Ok I cheated again. The crust was pre bought from FHA. We had a ton of crust left from that exhibition and something needed to be done to it. 

First up: We had The classic hawaiian pizza- with a ton of ham and pineapples. 

The tough part about making your own pizza is the crust. Which is a major challenge to some cuz you don't want it too tough, too thick etccc but I skipped this whole step here. But next time, it'd better be the real deal. [ After those pre made crusts are finished ]. 

1) Sprinkle some olive oil onto the crust.

2) Sprinkle some mozzarella cheese 

3) Top with ham and pineapples

4) Finish with more cheese ( I basically covered the whole pizza with cheese). The cheesier the better don't cha agree. We mixed the cheese with cheddar cheese and peppery jack cheese ( for that tinge of kick to it)

5) Bake 15 min ( or until crust turns brown n cheese is melted) 260C.  

Second Pizzza of the day: BBQ Chicken and mushrooms ( I can never leave the mushrooms alone) 

-1 skinless chicken breast about 160g

-1/2 cup bbq sauce ( or more if you wish) 

-some red onion, sliced thinly

- olive oil

- mozzarella cheese

1) Season chicken with salt and coat chicken with  3 tbsps of bbq sauce and marinade 30 min. 

2) Heat oil in pan and cook until meat is tender 

3) cut chicken into small cubes and coat with extra 2 tbsp of bbq sauce. Set aside

4) Drizzle dough with olive oil. Spoon some bbq sauce over the dough and spread evenly. 

5) Add some cheese. Add diced chicken, onions, mushrooms. 

6) Sprinkle more cheese

7) Bake 15min at 260C. 

Third pizza: The one and only famous Salami Pizza. 

Steps are the same as the hawaiian pizza.Just that use salami instead of ham and ignore the pineapples and again a generous doze of cheese. For certain dishes like pizzas, you don't stinge on cheese. Ok from the picture, the salami is rather obscure, you know the reason... Ooopss maybe too much cheese? . Nah 

Last but not least.. Shrimp and red pepper pesto courtesy of Nick from Macheesmo  

Shrimp and Red Pepper Pesto Pizza
This is for one 12-15 inch pizza

- 1/2 pound large (16-20 count) shrimp, peeled, deveined, and halfed
- 1 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- Juice from 1/2 lemon
- 1/2 Teaspoon red pepper flake
- 1/4 medium onion, cut into thin strips
- 1/4 red pepper, seeded and cut into strips
- 2 Cups low-moisture mozzarella cheese
- Fresh basil (I left this off because I didn’t have any. It was fine.)
- 2/3 Cup red pepper pesto

Roasted Red Pepper Pesto (Makes about 2 cups)– Clove garlic
- 1 jar (16 ounces) roasted red peppers [ I searched the entire country for roasted red peppers but I couldn't find this damn thing anywhere. Makes me so sad so I just bought my own red peppers and roasted them in the oven. I made sauce outta 2 whole peppers and Gosh it was way too much... One would have been just nice]  
- 3 Tablespoons grated Parmesan
- 1 Tablespoon fresh basil
- 1 Tablespoon olive oil
- 1 Teaspoon sugar
- 1/2 Teaspoon red pepper flakes

More detailed steps can be found from his site.

Overall verdict. Salami> Pesto with prawns> hawaiian > bbq chic. I really loved the red pepper prawn one cuz at least it tasted different from the usual. However nothing beats salami. Seriously nothing. It was a fun and memorable experience playing with food. YES I said it.. Playing with food... What my frens know me best for. My itchy hands. Middle of the pizza was a little soggy. Guess I was overly adventurous with the sauce. However the sides of the crust were perfect and crispy to the T.  Now, at least I'm more motivated to make my own pizza crust.Right now I'm craving for pepperoni's triple cheese pizza. THe last time we went there. Holy Molly, we ordered the XXXL and it was enough to fill a cow's stomach. 

Anyway,  tune in for more cheezy business! xoxo

Char Kway Teow

A popular fried noodle dish in Asia and can be found in almost every hawker centre/ food court. One of the reasons why I love this is because its skewed towards the sweeter side of a savory dish. It's not particularly a healthy dish when you eat them outside because of the tons of lard / oil they use to fry. So here's a healthier version of my mum's recipe which I emulated. 

Ingredients:
-garlic, 2-3 cloves minced
-half chinese sausage, sliced thinly
-1 cup beansprout
-sweet black sauce ( to taste) depends on how sweet you want your noodles to turn out
- 2eggs,beaten
-1 cup chye sim
-1 lb Kway teow or flat rice noodles
-sugar (to taste)
-oil for frying (abt 2 tbsp)


Steps:
1) Heat oil in a wok. Add garlic and stir fry 30sec.
2) Add the chinese sausage next and fry until almost cooked
3)Reduce heat and add bean sprout and chye sim. Fry until about cooked then add in noodles.
4) Add in sauce till the sweetness/blackness desired.
5) Scrap noodles to the sides of the pan and add in egg in the middle to cook.
6) When egg has just set, fry noodles together with egg.

Chinese Radish Cake

or law Bak Gou whatever they call it seems to be the dish we always order whenever we eat dim sum. Although there's no carrots in this recipe, I'm so used to calling it fried carrot cake.. Anyway while scouring the net for good food as usual, I chanced upon this blog called tastehongkong.com with amazingly good local dishes. That brought me on a quest to test out this Turnip cake with the addition of chinese sausage or Lap Chiong ;))) Mmh the taste of chinese sausage is just heavenly.. Bring it together with its fellow brother the " black liver sausage" and you have a harmony of flavors..

You can get the recipe from here.  I love how the cake turned out but I was a little lazy to fry them thus I just made do with the steam version. Obviously, I would recommend pan frying them cuz they will definitely taste better crispy..

You'll need the following:

• Ingredients
• 2kg turnip/ white radish ( Well, I bought 2 big oness about 2kg. But when I shredded them, they only turned out to be about 800g) Must have lost loads in the process of shredding them. Thus I half ed the subsequent amounts
• 300g rice flour (150g)
• 50g corn starch (25g)
• 2 pcs Chinese sausages (~100g) - I didn't half the ingredients..
• 6 pcs dried black mushroom
• 4 pcs dried scallop
• 30g dried shrimps
• 2 each shallots, finely sliced 

• Marinades
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp wine

• Seasonings
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp ground white pepper
• 1 tbsp oil

Well if you don't have a shredder machine like me, you just gotta do it the hard way. Works the arm muscles totally. The faster you shred the radish the easier it is.. so don't go so gentle on it. hahaaa

THERE! 

1) Turnips: Peel, rinse, shred  Rest all the turnip strips in a colander above a basin to drain and collect its juice. Draining the turnips is to prepare it for stir-frying as well as to reserve its juice for combining with the rice flour and corn starch.

dried scallops – rinse, soak in 1/2 cup of water for at least an hour, tear them into strips, reserve water

dried shrimps – rinse, soak in 1/2 cup of water for 10 minutes, discard water

Chinese sausages – rinse, coarsely chopped

dried mushrooms – rinse, soak in 1 cup of water for at least an hour or until soft, squeeze water in them and coarsely chopped, reserve water

Marinade the reconstituted, chopped mushrooms, scallops and shrimps for about 10 minutes.

3) Combine the corn starch and rice flour with 2 1/2 cups of water (inclusive of those collected from draining the turnip, soaking the mushrooms and scallops). Stir and mix well until smooth. Set aside.

4) Heat 3 table spoons of oil in wok over medium heat, sauté shallots till fragrant followed by chopped sausages, stir fry till they are also fragrant, then add in shrimps, mushrooms and scallops, keep stir frying. As all of them turn golden, about 3 minutes, toss in the turnip strips, add seasonings, and stir well. In about another 5 minutes, the strips will be softened and juice will exude from them.

5) Turn to low heat, slowly stir in flour mixture into the turnips (give the mixture a good stir before pouring in to avoid flour settling at the bottom). Turn and mix well until all incorporated well like a soft batter. Turn off heat.

6) Grease dish for steaming Transfer the turnip batter into the pan, flatten it into same height. Steam the turnip cake over high heat for 40 minutes. Check doneness by inserting a toothpick to see if it comes out clean.

 and we're good to go!! :)

       

Enjoy! xoxo