Summer Hands on Lookbook - New York Cheesecake

As mentioned in previous posts, my laptop crashed over the summer, luckily I still have some photos in my memory card that have not been transferred to my laptop. So today I will be sharing the first recipe of my summer cooking/baking series, which I shall call the Summer Hands on Lookbook.

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It was one of my best friends' birthday on 4th September, so my friend and I decided to bake her her favourite dessert -- New York Cheesecake. If I remembered right, this is most probably my first time tasting a New York cheesecake, I thought it tasted really good, and with the leftover ingredients, I baked another one myself as well the following day :P

What's so special about this cheesecake is that we used oreo biscuits as our crust, instead of the good ol' digestive biscuits! Also the base we made is thicker than the usual thickness.

Below are the ingredients I used for the first cheesecake (6 inch):

Crust:
120g oreo biscuits(white filling removed)
50g unsalted butter

Cheesecake filling:
250g cream cheese
50g organic cane sugar
3 eggs
50g unsalted butter

Topping:
60g sour cream
15g sugar
lemon juice of half a lemon


When I baked the second time(6 inch), I decided to adjust some of the amounts to see the difference. The crust worked fine with less butter.

Crust:
120g oreo with filling (approx. 11 oreo)
20-30g unsalted butter

Cheesecake filling:

226g cream chhese
40g organic cane sugar
30g unsalted butter
2eggs

Topping:
60g sour cream
15g sugar
lemon juice of 2/3 of  a lemon <-- this is good if one prefers the really sour taste. I prefer using just half a lemon of lemon juice.
some lemon zest

For both recipes, the methods are the same:
1. In a ziplock bag, add in the oreos and crush them with a baking pin so they turn into fine crumbs.
2. Melt the butter in the microwave.
3. In a bowl, mix in the melted butter and the oreo crumbs.
4. Line your 6 inch bottom removable baking pan with baking paper.
5. Transfer the crust mix into the baking pan. Press the crumbs down with a spoon so that the crumbs are tightly packed, forming a base. Place it in the fridge for at least 2 hrs.
5. Soften the cream cheese by leaving it at room temperature for 2hrs.
6. Whisk the cream cheese at a low speed, then add in sugar. Add in the eggs slowly at intervals, and finally the butter.
7. Preheat the oven to 160℃, pour the cheesecake mixture into the baking pan. Fill a baking tray with water and place your baking pan in the tray. Bake it for 60 mins.
8. Meanwhile, prepare the topping by just mixing all the topping ingredients together.
9. After 60 mins, add the topping mixture to the center of the cake, then hit the whole baking pan on a surface a few times, then it should spread evenly on the surface of the cheesecake.
10. Place it back in the oven and bake for another 5-8mins at 160℃.
11. Let it cool to room temperature then put it in the fridge overnight before serving.

Grilled Kimchi and Cheese Sandwich

Following my previous post's topic, today I am going to share with you a korean dish which I saw on youtube (Gabie Kook's channel) --Grilled Kimchi and Cheese Sandwich.  I adapted a little and used the remaining pork belly I had from kbbq for this quick and easy recipe.

Didn't really bother decorating it as it gets cool so quickly, so literally just snapshot a few and it was in my mouth :P

You will need:

Kimchi

Mozarella Cheese

Bread

Pork Belly (optional)

Cooking oil 

Salt

Pepper.

I did not write in any quantities to the ingredients this time as it is really up to you how full you want your sandwich to be. 

FYI, I only used a slice of pork belly which was about 15cm long and it was already enough for both sandwiches, along with kimchi and the cheese, of course.

Method:

1. Since I had some marinated pork belly from the kbbq we had last time, so I thought I will just add it in to spice it up a bit. So you can just go straight to step 4 if you want a "meatless" sandwich:)

2. Marinate the pork belly with some salt and pepper. Leave it for at least 20-30 mins, best if left in fridge overnight. 

3. Add in some cooking oil to a frying pan and grill the pork belly in whole. When it's almost cooked, cut it into thin slices then fry it for 2-3mins. 

4. Remove the pork belly from the frying pan and add in the kimchi, remember to drain out as much juice as you can before you fry them. 

5. When the kimchi becomes less moist, add in the pork belly and fry it for 2-3 mins.

6. On a clean frying pan, Heat two slices of bread on both sides, then add in mozarella cheese and the kimchi pork belly, then add more cheese, and lastly cover it with the other sliced of tasted bread. With a frying ladle, press the sandwich down to help the cheese melts and stick the layers together. (You could just toast two slices of bread and add in the fillings, both works fine.

Last four slices of bread at home lol

Not sure if the filling can be seen very clearly, but here is the final product!

KBBQ!!

It's been a long long while since I last updated. I actually have a lot of recipes to share with you as I have been cooking/baking quite a lot over the summer. However, my computer crashed and I lost all my data and that includes all the food photos I planned to post. So.. one big lesson learnt--- BACK UP MY DATA MORE OFTEN. 

Anyways, uni has started again and I will try and re-make the food I made in summer so that I can update you all what I've been doing in my kitchen in the summer:) 

And for today, I will be sharing you how I attempted eating korean bbq at home, since my flatmate and friends (and I) are all craving for some kfood. We do not have those professional/proper kbbq grill, so we used...

Yes.. We used a toastie machine.
This has two intechangeable plates so we used
the panini plate which worked fantastically. 
Cooks really efficiently too!

For three portions, we used about 500g of pork belly
marinated with salt and pepper.
Along with that we had onions, cucumbers and kimchi, 
with the korean ssamjang(+sesame oil) and rice to go with it.

The way to eat kbbq is that you wrap a bit 
of all the ingredients with a piece of lettuce.

It was a really fun and filling meal! It was a very interesting experience as it was our first time eat kbbq with a toastie machine. In fact this machine was newly bought for the purpose of this =P First time using it, so we were all glad it worked. I guess if it didn't, then we will just have to use it for toasties.. 

PS. We worked out that it is so so much cheaper to get the ingredients ourselves and bbq at home then eating out in korean restaurants~ Just the ingredients it was around 10 pounds, so that's less than 4 pounds for each of us. In korean restaurants, i guess it's at least 10 pounds per person, usually even more ( well they have better quality and wider range of meat.. so fair enough :P)

We bought two packs of 500g and turn out we only finished one pack, so in the next post I will be sharing how I deal with the left over pork belly.

Steamed Jelly Ear Chicken Rice!

This is one of my favourite Chinese dish - Steamed Jelly Ear Chicken Rice! I actually had to look up what jelly ear is in english, as this ingredient is rarely seen used in western food, and I don't think I have ever seen this term used in english context (maybe it's just me?). Jelly ear is probably the only type of fungi/mushroom I eat.. (very picky of me..:P)

You will need:
(2 servings)

3 chicken thighs
10 jelly ears
2 bowls of rice
soy sauce
ground pepper 
sugar
cornstarch
ginger

Steps:
1. Wash the jelly ears and soak in water until it becomes enlarges and softens.
2. Cut away the hard ends of the jelly ears. Prepare the ginger by peeling it then cutting it into strips or mince/grind it like I did.
3. Cut the chicken thighs into small pieces. Marinate with soya sauce, sugar, ground pepper and cornstarch. For better taste, leave it for at least half an hour.
4. Prepare the rice in rice cooker. Use 75-80% of the amount of water you normally use for the rice  because it can get really moist when you add the chicken later as it releases moisture/sauce. Add in the chicken and jelly ears on top of the rice in the rice cooker as soon as the water in the rice disappears.
5.When the rice cooker timer is up, it may not mean the chicken is fully cooked, so leave it in the rice cooker and until it is fully cooked with the remaining heat. 
6. Mix everything up to make sure the sauce gets mixed into the rice thoroughly.

Picture taken straight from the rice cooker

Mix.. Mix.. Mix..

Healthy salad!

Salads are probably one of the easiest and healthiest things to make. Just add in your favourite veggies and ingredients, then finish off with your favourite dressing and there you go!



I am going to share with you what I normally have in my salad.

In my salad:
salad tomatoes
sweetcorn
iceberg lettuce
cucumber
balsamic vinegar

(I don't really like leafy salad veggies, so I only used lettuce:P)

Method:
1. Wash all the ingredients.
2. Chop up all the ingredients.
3. Mix it in a bowl with balsamic vinegar.

Bits and Bobs

As you see from the title, I named this dish Bits and Bobs:P That is because you can literally mix and match any of the leftover ingredients you have in your fridge to do it. I was making pizza the other day, and had some leftover peppers, sweetcorn, onions, so I just combined with a few more other leftover ingredients in my fridge and created this dish.

You will need:

(4 servings)

half bowl of coloured peppers

mince pork (size of your fist x2)

half bowl of squash

half bowl of carrots

half bowl of sweetcorn

half bowl of onions

vinegar

soy sauce

osyter sauce

sugar

corn starch

water

1. Chop up the squash, onions, carrots and colour peppers. Defrost the sweetcorn.

2. Marinate the mince pork with soy sauce, sugar, starch

3. Boil the squash and carrots.

4. In a frying pan, add in some cooking oil and fry the onions, then add in the mince meat. When it is 90% cooked, add in 1.5 tablespoon of osyter sauce, one tablespoon of soy sauce and 2 teaspoons of vinegar. Add in 50ml of water just so the oyster sauce can get mixed in more easily.

5. Add in the peppers, squash, carrots and sweetcorn, and fry it for a 1-3 mins.

Another dish perfect with rice~:) You can also wrap it with lettuce. 

Blueberry buns!

Continuing from my previous post, today I am going to share with you how to make these blueberry buns. The ingredients are required for the bun is the same with the pizza base ingredients, with the addition of dried blueberries.

You will need:
(8-9 buns)

400g bread flour
40g of butter
6g yeast
80g sugar
200g warm water
lots of dried blueberries

Steps:

1. Mix in dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl, then slowly add in the water at intervals while kneading it until a dough is formed. It may be sticky at first when you knead, but when the dough is done, it should not stick to your hands
2. Cover the dough and let it ferment for at least 90 mins at room temperature.
3. Divide the dough into 8-9 equal portions, then make them into a sphere shape, then press it down so it is slightly flat, then make a hollow and add in a handful of dried blueberries, then close it up and then reform the sphere, make sure the dried blueberries are well packed inside and that the surface of the bun is smooth with no big cracks. 
I have done experiments testing the effect of having cracks on the surface and not, as well has having blueberries peeping out on the surface and not (as you can tell from the picture above, some has a more smooth surface, some looked more like scones lol). The ones that had blueberries peeping out, they fell out as the bun rises in the oven.  So I suggest to keep all the dried blueberries in and keep the surface smooth. If there are cracks that you can't fix, keep the cracked side facing down in the oven tray.
4. Preheat the oven to 180-200C, then place the buns in the oven for 15-20mins.

You may apply a layer of egg yolk on the surface to give a shiny glaze. I did not do that because I ran out of eggs at home. Now my buns looks as if it's really dry, and a bit like scones as well haha. But in fact they taste quite good and are 100% buns!!! (not scones..)