Homemade Udon Noodles 自製烏龍麵

Every time we go to the library I always end up with a pile of food books to take home and devour.  Recently I picked up a Japanese cookbook about simple Japanese home cooking and, while idly flipping through it, discovered a recipe for homemade udon.  YUMMY...we love udon noodles!  Hummm...but wouldn't making udon noodles be the opposite of 'simple'?

Turns out that it is really simple to make homemade udon!  Who knew, amiright?  And not only is it easy to make, but this homemade udon tastes SO GOOD: thick, firm and chewy, so slurp-able and freshly noodle-licious!!

Truth: I'm a wee bit addicted to these fabulous and fresh noodles...

Coloured Macarons Filled with White Chocolate Ganache

I'm super excited to share this particular post with everyone!  Homemade macarons!  We love macarons so much but then who doesn't, amirite?   These dainty meringue based sandwich cookies have stolen the world's sugar encrusted heart.  So what could be better than to be able to make these at home, right?  We've previously successfully made scrumptious chocolate flavored macarons at THKC however, every time we tried to make other coloured macarons we have failed.  :(

Onwards in time...and this Christmas my little girl and I decided to participate in her school Xmas bazaar and thus needed to bake up a seeming truckload of cookies to sell.  And one of the cookies that my little girl really wanted for the bake sale was macarons coloured  in red and green, all the Christmas colors.  Yiks!  Could I do it?  Not sure but like a good and hopeful mama, I said yes to coloured macarons.

Ahhh...a challenge laid down.  Dear readers, the cookie game was afoot!

Homemade Kombucha - Second Fermentation

When you make kombucha, fermented tea, you have the option of making kombucha tea up to the first fermentation and then enjoying it immediately with all the probiotic health benefits or you can go on to do a second fermentation, which is optional but very much recommended.  The second fermentation is an opportunity to add both flavor and fizz to your kombucha tea.  Most of the kombucha sold in stores are flavored kombucha that have gone thru second fermentation.

We have found the addition of extra flavor to really boost the taste of the kombucha.  Especially enjoyable is the delightful fizz that can be produced due to the carbonation created by the further fermentation.  A fizzy fruit flavored healthful homemade drink, what more can you ask for?!

Homemade Kombucha - First Fermentation

Making kombucha, or sweet fermented tea, is easily done at home!  It’s a fabulous drink, tart and refreshing, to have handy for you and your family, full of gut healthy probiotics and anti-oxidents.  And did you know that kombucha originally came from China?  That's right, kombucha came originally from northeast China around 200 B.C.  After that kombucha traveled around the world, passing through Japan, Europe, and Russia, celebrated everywhere for its health benefits.

The thing about making kombucha is that you have to set it up first.  Once you’ve got everything set up it’s just a matter of keeping it going, very easy.  I’m breaking my homemade kombucha posts into three parts so as to be really clear and avoid the misunderstandings that confused me when I first started my kombucha journey.

The first thing to do is to make the SCOBY, a gelatinous blob that contains all the good bacteria and yeast that is needed to power the kombucha fermentation.  We’ve done that in our first post on How To Make a SCOBY.  Once you have a viable SCOBY you’re ready for the next step which is making the kombucha tea, first fermentation, which is what this post is about.  In our next post we’ll talk about the final optional step:  kombucha tea, second fermentation.

Homemade Scoby for Making Kombucha

I’ve seen kombucha, a fermented tea drink originating long, long ago from China, around on health food store shelves for a long time.  Never tried it.  But it has stuck around and I've heard more and more about it.  But it's expensive!  

Recently I realized that it could be made at home.  As our dear readers will already know we've much interest in fermentation and its health benefits - probiotics!  anti-oxidents!  We've been fermenting all sorts of things.  This is our first fermented drink.  

Overall I found that homemade kombucha is pretty easy, but you gotta setup a system first.  I really love, love that I can make a refreshing and healthful homemade fizzy drink that the whole family enjoys!  How cool is that!?

Okay, then, the first essential step to homemade kombucha is to make a ‘SCOBY.'  What is this thing with the cute name, you say?  Well, SCOBY stands for 'symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast'.  In reality it's a gelatinous blob (see photo above) that acts as the central control station of kombucha fermentation.  Let's make a SCOBY!

White Bean Paste Dough | Nerikiri

This innocuous looking piece of dough is much more interesting than it looks.   This, dear readers, is the not really famous but totally should be famous Japanese white bean paste dough.  Also known as White Bean Paste Nerikiri Dough.

This versatile dough made of white bean paste and mochi becomes an edible dessert 'clay' with which you can make so many yummilicious as well as gorgeously shaped and textured sweet desserts.  It's amazing, really, the wonderful shapes that can be made: flowers, leaves, pumpkins, animals, etc.  The limit is your imagination and ingenuity.

Chestnut Purée 栗子泥

Okay, this is one of those things were I’m like, floored, at how something I made at home can be so damn good.  Previously when I needed chestnut purée for cake, etc., I had bought cans of ‘crème de marrons ’, (french for chestnut purée).  The French are crazy about chestnuts, apparently, and rightly so.  Crème de Marrons is sooooo yummy!!  I just want to eat it up straight out of the can!  

However, this year, just as I was gearing up for my yearly Chestnut Birthday Cake 栗子蛋糕 (for my hubby😘), my grocery store stopped carrying crème de marron.  Of course.  Right when I need it. Thanks, grocery store.  

So my only option was to try to make it at home.  I was pretty nervous, under a lot of cake-y pressure.  Would it turn out anything like the delicious chestnut purée that I needed for my cake?

Turns out that homemade chestnut purée is pretty easy to make and pretty darn close to the commercially packed ones.  Golden, nuttily sweet with a thick smooth texture, homemade chestnut purée is absolutely fabulous!  And it saves me a buck or two, yay!

Homemade Sui Mai Wrapper 自製燒賣皮

As a fitting start to our Dim Sum exploration I thought to start with the quintessential Siu Mai dim sum 燒賣點心, one of the most favorite and famous of all the dim sums.  However I quickly ran into a problem- it was hard to find and purchase the distinctive yellow sui mai wrapper that form such an integral part of the iconic look of the Siu Mai dim sum dumpling.

So I decided to make my own.  It’s pretty straight forward to make but does require some time, mostly for the cutting up of the individual wrappers.  But man, oh man, was I able to make really nicely thin wrappers which is a must for the really good little dim sum dumpling - no one wants a mouthful of wrapper rather than a mouthful of yummilicious savory filling!

Sui Mai - Chinese Steamed Dumpling 燒賣

We're getting serious about dim sum 點心!  What is dim sum?  It's the Cantonese version of tapas, small servings of savoury or sweet bite-sized delicacies, enjoyed with cups of fragrant tea during the ritual of morning tea, known as 'yum cha 飲茶'.

The sui mai 燒賣 is one of the most iconic of these Chinese dim sum treats.  It's certainly one of the most visually distinctive with its yellow skin and orange sprinkles on top.  Also a crowd favorite, so popular in fact that it has popped out of the dim sum restaurants and into a new life as a street food.  It's widely available at corner stores and convenience stores.  Sui mai has become the snack du jour!

These street level sui mai are quite delicious of course but they are very simplified forms of the original sui mai dim sum.  Today we’re going to make the traditional sui mai 燒賣 as served in the dim sum teahouses:  savory juicy morsels of pork and shrimp wrapped in a delicate skin and topped with that classic bit of orange roe.

Chinese Salt Pickled Vegetables 自製中式泡菜

These little veggie goodies that you can make at home are fantastic little bombs of fermented probiotic goodness!  With a simple brine of salt and water vegetables can be transformed into delicious health boosting pickles that can keep for a long time.  

This process to do this is known as lacto fermentation whereby good bacteria known as Lactobacillus are used to break down starch and sugars into lactic acid, a natural preservative.  The transformative result is veggie pickles with a tanginess introduced, flavors intensified and layered with new taste notes, texture still packing a bit of crunch.

As this was the traditional way to preserve vegetables in the days of old, one can find lacto fermented food in most every culture.  Sauerkraut, kimchi, jalapeños, dill pickles, yogurt, kefir, natto (our new obbession!), kombucha, tempeh and miso are just a few examples of the endless variety of fermented foods found around the world.  

Today we introduce the traditional Chinese way of making Pickled Vegetables 泡菜, a brine soak resulting in yummiliciously delicious veggie pickles infused with aromatic Chinese spices.  It's super simple to make, just need a bit of time and patience.

Chinese Flaky Pastry Dough Huaiyang Pastry 淮揚酥皮

The Chinese Flaky Pastry Dough 油酥皮, also known as Huaiyang Flaky Pastry Dough 淮揚酥皮, creates a layered pastry that is similar and yet not similar to the western style of layered pastry like the kind achieved in the croissant.   The western layered pastry is usually constructed with butter while the Chinese layered pastry is constructed with lard or shortening.  The western style achieves beautiful firm layering, chewy bite and a crispy golden surface.  Yum, amiright?  

But the Chinese Huaiyang Flaky Pastry Dough 淮揚酥皮  achieves another kind pastry heaven, a delicate tender, flaky, white pastry skin that practically melts in your mouth!

Indomie Mi Goreng Instant Stir Fry Noodles

This delectable concoction, my dear readers, is my newest most favorite snack!  While I like my instant noodles just as much as any other Asian person does, it's not something that I crave everyday.  However my hubby recently introduced me to a plate of the fabulous Indomie Instant Noodle and I have fallen quickly and deliciously into deep food love!  I think I just about swallowed that first plateful of Indomie in one breath, it was so yummilicious!!  

Hear me, oh noodle lovers, this is the perfect noodle snack you've been waiting for!  I had to make sure to spread the faith though it's probably not necessary as Indomie is already getting quite a cult following amongst the noodle lovers.  But just in case you missed it, here is Indomie Mi Goreng Instant Noodles, the most perfectly flavored sauce tossed instant noodle, in its classic preparation!  (Pssst...it's just the thing to stock up on these days when we're cooking and eating at home so much.)

Grand Marnier Marzipan Cherry Chocolates

Nothing says love as sweetly and sincerely as a luscious bit of elegantly presented chocolate.  So I decided to try my hand at handcrafting some chocolates for Valentine's Day to gift to my heart of hearts.  And let me add, before you get discouraged by the word 'handcraft', this little luscious bonbon is pretty darn easy to make at home!

Before deciding what kind of bonbon to make I had a rummage through my food hoard.  Amongst other treasures I discovered a load of marzipan that I bought on sale, some leftover cherries from making the decadent Eight Treasures Rice Pudding and lots and lots of chocolate.  (I have to hide my hoard of chocolate so that my  family won't make fun of how much I have squirreled away.)  

Add in a dollop of citrus scented liquor and I had the makings for very fancy handcrafted bonbons,  the very sexy Grand Marnier Marzipan Cherry Chocolates, a surprisingly easy to make chocolate and marzipan treat with a luscious surprise cherry heart that tastes amazing and looks seriously out of this world! A special 'from the heart' treat for a special Valentine!

How to Make Your Own Lard

I know, I know.  Make your own lard?  Well, why not, lard is a super duper tasty fat and making it fresh at home only makes it that much more fabulous.  Lard makes things taste seriously yummilicious!  It's the secret to the sauce!

Making your own lard is not only easy but the lard is super fresh and way tastier than the processed stuff that you find in the grocery store.

Wait a minute, isn't this stuff suppose to be bad for you?  Well, if you follow health news at all you will have seen in the news a lot lately that lard is not bad for you after all...surprise, surprise!   Actually lard was never bad for you, if used in moderation.

What happened is that in the early 20th century a concentrated effort to vilify lard began, mostly in order to help companies sell their new products of margarine and vegetable shortening (transfat!) which as we all now know are very bad for your health.  Check out our post on Choosing Healthy Oils to see more about what we think are 'healthy cooking fats or oils'.

So the happy ending is that lovely creamy lard is not bad for you at all when used in moderation (hey, our ancestors used it for many millennium after all).  And it really is a very, very tasty fat! 

Make Your Own Gingerbread House | Day 1

My favorite time of the year, Christmas season, is near to hand and, inspired by that age old Brothers Grimm fairy tale, we made a Hansel and Gretel themed Gingerbread House!!  Do you remember the part in the original tale where the brother and sister, abandoned in the woods and very hungry, find a life sized gingerbread house:

"On they walked and walked, til suddenly they came upon a strange cottage in the middle of a glade.

     'This is chocolate!' gasped Hansel as he broke a lump of plaster from the wall.

     'And this is icing!' exclaimed Gretel, putting another piece of wall in her mouth.  Starving but delighted, the children began to eat pieces of candy broken off the cottage." 

~Hansel and Gretel from Grimm's Fairy Tales, 1812

Homemade Silver Pin Noodles 自製銀針粉

Lovely, slippery, chewy, homemade, hand rolled traditional Chinese noodles!  Easy to make, these traditional Homemade Silver Pin Noodles 自製銀針粉 will have you feeling like you've time traveled to a past when folks gathered around the table, rolling the dinner noodles deftly with a clever quick hands, all the while chatting and gossiping of this and that.  

Really, while it's actually quite easy to make these noodles, you might want to make sure you have a few friends or kids to help you out, make it a noodle rolling party!