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Showing posts with label Celebrity Chefs - Poh Ling Yeow. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Celebrity Chefs - Poh Ling Yeow. Show all posts
Spicy Prawn Curry with Pineapple
Comments (13) | Tuesday, July 13, 2010
I hadn't even heard of Nyonya cuisine until my last few trips to Malaysia. Mum was on the hunt for cookbooks, and I remember looking out for them when wondering into book shops.
I never thought I would be able to cook any Nyonya recipes, but after seeing a tempting curry on a recent episode of Poh's Kitchen, Hamsley and I were both dying to try this particular curry.
I didn't add all 20 chillies as listed, as I didn't know how spicy Hamsley could handle; as Nyonya food is usually quite on the spicy side.
It seemed easy enough on the show, but the recipe on the website failed to include tumeric in the ingredients list. It did list tamarind pieces, but failed to say when to add them. So I got the end of my cooking then released I didn't add them in.
I ended up shelling the prawns as I knew Hamsley wouldn't really be a fan of getting his hand all icky whilst eating, but left a few shelled for presentation. I found the prawns that stayed shelled to not be as spicy as their un-shelled companions.
Unfortunately our "blender" didn't grind my spice mix as fine as I would have liked, but it did a good enough job. I'll be picking up a Sunbeam foodprocessor/blender sooner rather than later after that experience.
The smells coming from the kitchen as I fried the spice mix were amazing! I was immediately transported back to Malaysia. The taste was also fantastic. The spiciness of the chilli, mixed with the sweetness of the pineapple; which helped to bite through the spiciness; then all brought together with coconut cream. So lucious!
Can't wait to cook this for my family when they come down from the motherland!
To learn more about Nyona: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peranakan
Spicy Prawn Curry with Pineapple
Chef Florence Tan
1kg big prawns - cleaned
500g pineapple - cut into 6mm triangle shapes
175ml Carotino oil (or organic palm oil; I used vegetable oil)
2 dried tamarind pieces
5 Kaffir lime leaves
350ml thick coconut milk
700ml water
Pounded or blended Ingredients
20 dried chillies - soaked well
300g shallots
3 garlic (big)
5 candlenuts (or macadamia nuts)
3cm fresh galanga
4 lemongrass
2 ½ tsp belachan (shrimp paste granules)
Seasoning
1 ¼ tbs salt
3 ½ tbs sugar
1 tbs anchovy granules (available from your Asian grocer)
1. Heat oil and fry pounded ingredients until fragrant. (About 10 minutes or until the oil starts to separate)
2. Add pineapple. Cook for a few minutes then add the sugar. Continue cooking for five minutes. Stirring occasionally.
3. Pour in water and bring to the boil. Lower heat and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes. Add Kaffir lime leaves and tamarind pieces.
4. Increase heat, then add the prawns and seasoning.
5. Bring to boil. Pour in the thick coconut milk. Leave it to boil for a few minutes, then serve with white rice.
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Poh's Orange Chiffon Cake
Comments (15) | Friday, July 9, 2010
If you haven't heard me whinge on twitter about how worried I've been to try my oven, then hear me now! Our place has an oven that is probably older than I am; and older ovens don't have the best reputation of cooking things well. You have to find the hot spots, and get to know it well. To top it all off, the temperate gauge is in Fahrenheit, and the numbers are all faded off! This has caused me to write them on, and use my iPhone for conversions every time I want to bake something.
So I thought, the real test to see how this oven is going is to bake a cake.
I'd been wanting to try Poh's orange chiffon cake she made on her first episode of her show; Poh's Kitchen.
I always begged my mum to buy a sponge cake whenever I went to the Asian grocery shop with her. Weather it be the orange one, or the awesome looking green pandan flavour. They were always so light and fluffy. For YEARS I had not had a sponge from the Asian grocer. I can't even remember the last time we had one.
To see the video of Poh making this cake: www.abc.net.au/tv/pohskitchen/stories/s2768097.htm
The only thing I hate about making cakes is lining the tin. Luckily for me, you don't need to line the cake tin for this one! The combination of coconut milk and vegetable oil doesn't require you to line the tin. The recipe even stresses to not line or grease the tin. Yippee!
I decided to leave out the layers of cream for 2 reasons:
- I couldn't be bothered
- The only cream my waistline needs is a firming and toning cream
I was almost going to leave out the ganache as it smelt so amazing as I unmolded it from the tin. However Hamsley insisted there be ganache as I had already prepared the hazelnuts to go over the ganache.
The end result: just like those cakes mum used to buy me (you know, minus the chocolate ganache and hazelnuts). So light, and incredibly fluffy, maybe not as tall as the ones we used to buy, but the flavours and textures were all spot on.
I made the correct amount of ganache, but if I had made the cream layers, the cake would have been higher, and I wouldn't have had so much excess ganache.
I can't wait to try this recipe again but doing a pandan flavour. If I can only ever make one cake again, I'd be happy if it was this one!
Orange Chiffon Cake
Poh Ling Yeow
5 egg whites (at room temperature is best)
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
75g caster sugar
5 egg yolks
7 tbs coconut milk
5 tbs vegetable oil
75g caster sugar
5 tbs orange juice
1 tbs orange zest
150g self raising flour, sifted
400ml full cream
2 tbs icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla paste or extract
150g hazelnuts
150ml full cream
200g good quality dark chocolate chopped or broken into small pieces
1. Preheat oven at 160°C fan forced/180°C regular.
2. Beat egg whites and cream of tartar with an electric mixer till soft peaks. Add sugar one tablespoon at a time a beat thoroughly after each addition till you achieve stiff peaks. Set aside.
3. In a separate bowl whisk egg yolks with caster sugar till fluffy. Add coconut milk, vegetable oil, orange juice, zest and self raising flour and whisk until combined. Gently fold the egg whites into the yolk mixture 3 batches.
4. Pour into a 22cm baba cake tin (do not use non-stick and do not grease). Bake 25 mins at 160°C fan forced or 30 mins at 180°C, or till skewer comes out clean. Leave oven on to roast hazelnuts.
5. When cake is out of the oven, immediately invert the cake still in the tin, and place on a cooling rack and leave to cool completely (about 1 1/2 hours).
6. Meanwhile, place hazelnuts on a shallow baking tray and roast until the skins are easily flaking off when rubbed, about 7 mins. Remove from the oven and pour onto the middle of a clean tea towel. Fold sides over the nuts and rub till all the skins have flaked off. Transfer the nuts onto a chopping board and chop to desired texture.
7. To make filling, whip the cream, sugar and vanilla till stiff but do not overbeat as cream will split. Cover with cling film and refrigerate until required.
8. When cake is cooled and ready to be assembled, run a knife around the edges of the tin and invert. Slice cake with a serrated knife into 3 equal layers. Spread a layer of the chantilly cream on each layer and sprinkle with chopped hazelnuts.
9. To make ganache, bring cream to the boil in a small saucepan. Remove from heat, add chocolate pieces and whisk till chocolate has melted and emulsified with cream. Using a spatula spread evenly over cake and sprinkle with additional chopped hazelnuts. For a tidier outcome, it’s best to ice the cake over a cooling rack so the extra ganache drips away.
Serves 8-10
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