Category Archives: Cooking international

Cooking international, Desserts and baking

Calamansi upside down cake

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Calamansi upside down cake.

I made up this recipe so that we can use up extra  calamansi grown by my aunt ( mami in marathi), Sushama Patwardhan who is an excellent cook and enthusiastic about all her pursuits .

Ingredients

3 eggs

125 g sugar

½ tsp vanilla essence

150 g  plain flour +

10 g baking powder

Sieve well together to combine all

Or a mix of flour/ almond powder / cornflour ( 150 g total)

and baking powder ( 10 g)

75 g butter+

75 g oil (melt the two gently)

Slice calamansi 2-3 to lay at base of the cake.

Juice and grated rind of 1-2 calamansi .

For the caramelized calamanai at the base

Sugar 40 g

Butter-20 g

Preheat oven to 180 C first

Make your cake tin and line with baking paper next.

Melt butter and oil

Sieve or mix flour and

baking powder mix well together

Put slices of calamansi on bottom on cake tin( 8 inch).

Make caramel add butter to it and a teaspoon of water . Pour over the slice of calamansi.

Whisk eggs till really thick and fluffy with the sugar . Add in rind and juice of calamansi and vanilla. Gently add in the melted butter and oil mix.

Gently fold in flour and bp mix.

Pour mixture in cake tin making sure it’s evenly spread.

Bake at 180c for 20-25 mins.

Test with a toothpick or thin knife. If it

comes out clean its done.

 

Cooking indian, Cooking international, Cooking middle eastern

A Samosa/ Sambousek/Samsa– fried pastry by yet another name

There are various versions of a savoury filling wrapped around with a crumbly/ flakey pastry through the world. The indians have their samosas and kachoris.In the middle east there are the Sambousek/ Fateyers/rokaka. korea the Mandu, South america the empanda..Even Russia has something called a vareniki and the Uyghur Muslims the Samsa-which they bake in a clay oven like the tandoor..So all foods are related or sometimes similar. The lines started to get blurred with all the invasions and migrations..

When i lived in the West indies they would make fried potato pastry called “Aloo(potato) Pie”

Cooking international, Desserts and baking

Sticky date pudding

  1. Dates 200g
  2. Hot water to soak 300g
  3. Baking soda/ soda bicarb- 5 g

After 30 mins blend to a thick paste with a stick blender.

Don’t put too much bicarb otherwise will taste horrible.

  • Whisk 3 eggs with
  • Sugar 200 g
  • Vanilla essence

When thick add

  • Melted butter 50 g
  • Oil -40 g

Add date paste and fold in carefully

Flour 225 g+ baking powder 5 g

Steam or bake for 20 mins – 175 C.

Steaming makes a softer and lighter product.

Can scale this to go up to a batch multiplied by 10. We make this at work for 300 people .

Great with a salted caramel butterscotch sauce .

 

 

 

Cooking Asian, Cooking international

Kukula Kari

S as anpice mix

  • Cardamom 2 g/ 1/2 t
  • Cinnamon stick -1 small one /1 g
  • Cloves – 2g
  • Peppercorns 1 t/ 3 g can double it if you can handle the heat.
  • Dry coconut – 50 g
  • Bayleaf-1-2
  • Coriander seeds -1T.
  • Fennel seeds – 5 g/ 1 t
  • Dry red chilli – 1-2/ 5 g

Toast coconut in the microwave .when lightly browned add rest of the spices and toast yet again for upto 1.5 mins .

Cool down and grind. It should be a darkish coloured powder.

  • Chicken thighs boneless or bone in skin off – 1 kg
  • Goraka extract / tamarind/ lemone juice – 10 ml
  • Turmeric -1 t/ 5 g
  • Chilli powder -10 g/ 2 t
  • Salt
  • Oil-25 g
  • Chopped onions – 250 g
  • Crushed tomatoes – 150 g
  • Crushed garlic-25 g
  • Crushed ginger – 20 g
  • Coconut cream – 200 ml
  1. Heat oil, saute the onion till light browned.
  2. Add the chicken and the spice mix.
  3. Add the crushed tomatoes coconut cream ginger and garlic and simmer on low for 30-3 min.
  4. Best eaten the next day with some hoppers/ appam or porotta.
Cooking international, Desserts and baking

Hot cross buns – one a penny two a penny.

♦This hot cross bun comes from the pastry maestro Angelo Roche, who was our batch coordinator and trainer many many many moons back in 1994.. I was able to catch up with him again when i moved to Sydney from Aotearoa.

There are 2 parts to the recipe, nay 3 including  the cross on the top

The Tanzhong- cooked starch paste- which makes them soft and fluffy.

  • water- 65g
  • milk -60 g
  • flour – 25 g

mix well together and microwave for 30 seconds or if you have a fancy 30k Rational Combi oven steam it there for 5 minutes. The idea is to have a cooked starch paste as the base for the recipe, which then makes the buns super soft and increases shelf life.

The next part has

  • tangzhong- 120 g-
  • milk-120 g
  • milk powder-7 g
  • sugar-35 g
  • yeast- 6 g
  • raisins- 100 g or mix of raisins , currants and mixed peel.
  • flour- 350 g
  • allspice- 1 g
  • cinnamon- 1g
  • Butter 30 g soft
  • cardamom- pinch
  • egg- 1 ea
  • salt- 5g

Mix warm tangzhong , with milk flour and yeast and set aside to bubble bubble boil and trouble.

Hehe no incantations required just cos it’s a rich dough do need to activate the yeast a bit more really.

Then add  everything else except salt and butter, which goes in the end .

Form the dough, keep it covered in a warmish place ..you know the drill.

Once proofed, knock back, divide into equal sizes -(50 g ) each roughly and arrange on a baking tray close to each other .

For the third part cos the power of three shall set us free.

  • Flour 250 g
  • Oil 75 g
  • Water 300 g

Mix oil and flour and then add water to form a smooth paste which can be piped.

Pipe horizontally on the buns , then vertically.

proof till nearly doubled in size, brush with egg wash. and bake in preheated oven at 180 C for 12-15 mins.