Aria's Chocolate Tart

Actually I didn't plan to make Matt Moran's chocolate tart version from Masterchef. Initially I planned to just do a chocolate tart, having made the pastry dough already but nothing to fill it in. Anyway, long story short the baking was rather impromptu so I had to scour last minute for the shops after finding out that our supply of dark chocolate and cream are low; not to mention after spending a good half of the day trying to find our tart tray to no avail I had to use three mini tart trays (and finding another one after the second baking session) and do four baking sessions instead. Which gave me a pretty good working time to put the Chocolate Glacage on the ones that have cooled down.

To tell you the truth the bake is not a complete 'success' since I used my cousin's pastry recipe of using the one-two-four rule for making the dough, which didn't give enough shine because she forgot to tell me before she went to class to add egg yolks to the recipe. *shakes fist* Not to mention a number of the pastry is rolled out a little too thick and some a little too thin. But otherwise the chocolate filling tasted oh-so-good. It wasn't overwhelmingly chocolatey because I used 70% cocoa blocks instead so it tasted bitter sweet, which is just the way I like it.

Anyway, excuse the ramblings. Without further ado here is the recipe.

There were other recipes for other parts of the Masterchef presentation, which can be found at the MasterChef website.

Ingredients

Basic Pastry

50ml water
100g butter, diced
200g flour
pinch of salt

NB. Perhaps it would be good to add egg yolk in the recipe as well but I suggest using MasterChef's Chocolate Pastry recipe instead. It looks that damn good. And for the pastry don't worry if you have leftovers of the dough you can always use if for something later.

Chocolate tart mixture

210g dark chocolate, chopped
60g jivar chocolate, chopped
60g butter, diced
315ml cream
3 eggs
2 egg yolks

Chocolate Sauce

60g cocoa
200ml water
120g caster sugar (I only use about two-third of the sugar because we don't particularly like it too sweet and it was still sweet)
25g butter, diced

Chocolate Glacage (Chocolate Glaze)

300g dark chocolate, chopped
240ml cream
300ml chocolate sauce

NB. I only used half of the recipe and we still have leftovers of the Chocolate Glacage enough to use for thirteen mini tarts.

Method

Basic Pastry

1. Rub flour and butter together until it makes a crumbly texture.
2. Add water and pinch of salt. Work the dough quickly so they don't end up into a rubbery texture, which you do not want to have as a tart base.
3. Wrap the dough in cling wrap and rest in fridge for 30 minutes. Or if there are leftovers you can just leave it in the fridge for when you want to use it next.
4. Line mini tart trays. Roll the dough accordingly, place in trays, stab holes at the bottom of the base and weigh them with rice on baking papers. When placing the dough I suggest not to cut the edges off and leave a little bit of excess until after you blind bake. This will prevent the tart base from shrinking and leave more room for more chocolate filling.
5. Blind bake in a 180°C oven for 10 minutes. After blind baking trim excess tart edges.

Chocolate Tart Mixture

1. Preheat oven to 160°C.
2. Place chocolate and butter in a bowl. I didn't know what Jivar chocolate was so I ended up using 200g Nestle 70% Cocoa Chocolate block with the remaining 70g using Nestle Dark Chocolate Melts.
3. Place cream in a saucepan and bring to the boil.
4. Pour cream over chocolate in bowl and stir until smooth, stir in eggs. And drool at the sight.
5. Pour chocolate mixture into tart shells and bake for 25 minutes. Allow to cool to room temperature then ice with chocolate glacage. Place in fridge for about another 20-30 minutes to allow chocolate glacage firm.

Chocolate Sauce

1. Combine cocoa, water and sugar in a saucepan and stir over heat until sugar dissolves, bring to the boil. Stir in butter, strain through a sieve placed over a bowl.

Chocolate Glacage (Chocolate Glaze)

1. Place chocolate in a large bowl and set aside.
2. Place cream in a saucepan and bring to the boil.
3. Pour cream over chocolate in bowl and stir until smooth, stir in chocolate sauce.
4. Dip finger and lick. Chocolatey squee of delight ensues.

After everything's done and over with, dig in!

Steamed Broccoli with Oyster Sauce

This is the lazy guide for someone who doesn't want to cook stir fried veggies but still want an easy recipe and eat healthy!

Ingredients

Broccoli pieces (cut into medium pieces and steamed/boiled)
1 tbsp of vegetable oil
3-4 big spoonfuls of Oyster Sauce
2 cloves of garlic, pressed
a small amount of corn flour (roughly 1/2 tsp could be less)
2 tbsp of water
Salt and sugar to taste

Method

1. Before cooking put the corn flour in two tablespoon of water and mix to use later. (The corn flour tend to rest on the bottom after you leave it for a while don't worry just mix it again before you place it with the rest of the ingredients)

2. Put a tablespoon of vegetable oil into a small pan or a wok on a medium heat. Place pressed garlic, stir and fry until golden and smell like... fried garlic. But be careful, don't leave garlic in the oil for too long as they tend to burn very easily.

3. Place the oyster sauce in the pan/wok and stir around until the oyster sauce boil and put the heat down to simmer. Add a few tablespoons of water to make the sauce a little runny and not too overwhelmingly taste like oyster sauce if you'd like. Add salt and/or sugar to taste and if you feel like it lacks flavour add more oyster sauce to taste.

4. Add the corn flour and water mixture into the pan/wok and mix. The mixture should begin to be slightly of thicker consistency. Add more corn flour and water mixture if you want the sauce a little thicker.

5. Place boiled/steamed broccoli pieces on a plate and top with the oyster sauce. And enjoy!

N.B. You can always substitute the broccoli with other boiled veggies like carrots, bok choy, asparagus or other veggies that you think would suit the sauce.

Fishcake and Veggies Soup

This is sort of a processed food version that I made within half an hour or so. Which doesn't really include the time it takes to prepare the ingredients but still considerably pretty good considering you're really hungry.

Note: I usually purchase the Korean variety fishcakes, which comes with fishcakes of all different shapes and sizes and taste pretty decent. And also they usually include packets of seasonings in the batch so you don't really have to buy stocks.

Ingredients

3 cups of water
several mixed pieces of fishcakes
6 beef meatballs (OPTIONAL)
1 celery stalk, julienned
1 carrot, cut on an angle about 2cm thick
2 cabbage leaves, cut into large square pieces
a handful of green beans, cut into medium length
a dash of salt
a flick of pepper
a fling of sugar
vegetable stock powder (OPTIONAL)

Method

1. Boil a pot of water (not the 3 cups of water). Place beef meatballs and fishcakes into pot. Drain the ingredients as soon as they float to the surface and the water boiled once again.
Note: I usually boil the beef meatballs and fishcakes separately because the fishcakes tend to leave oil residue in the boiled water whereas the meatballs won't.

2. Boil 3 cups of water in (preferably another) pot. Place stock powder in the pot and stir to mix. Place the carrot in the pot. Wait for carrot to cook.
Note: To check whether the carrot is cook stab the carrot pieces with a fork. If the fork glides well into the carrot then they're cooked.

3. Place green beans in the pot. Wait for about 3 minutes before placing cabbages and celery in the pot. After all the vegetables are relatively cooked place meatballs and fishcakes in the pot. Wait for the soup to boil. Add a dash of sugar, salt and pepper to taste.
Note: Sugar helps to add a bit of sweetness into the soup because when I cooked it the salty taste of the stock overpowers the sweetness of the veggies so sugar was added as an additional taste enhancer.

4. Serve and eat. : )

To be honest I'm not quite sure whether the measurement is right or not. And I'm a very bad estimator as well. So apologies if there turned out to be excessive amount of water. I usually don't measure my ingredients when I cook so let your instinct take over. ;)

Bubur Manado

I suppose you can call it 'Manado Congee' in English. I'm not too sure how authentic this recipe is but my aunty loves cooking it this way. So here goes nothing.

Ingredients (to be added while cooking Simple Congee)

1 carrot, cut into chunks
½ sweet potato, cut into chunks

Ingredients (to be cooked separately)

1 bunch of water spinach
1 corn

Method

1. Cook the water spinach and corn separately. Strip the corncobs using a knife.

2. Add everything once congee is cooked in a bowl.

Additional Condiment

This dish is usually served with a special condiment that complements the congee very well.

½ spanish onion, small diced
1 tomato, small diced
3 chillies (small ones)
a squeeze of lemon juice
a dash of salt

And then just add all of the ingredients together for the condiment.

To Serve

Serve the congee in a bowl for each person. Top with the condiment. Add a splash of soy sauce, salt and pepper. If possible, top with salted fish.

Grilled Bacon Congee

I know, it sounds weird. But this tastes sooo delicious! You can always replace the bacon with salted fish or chopped up ham if you want to. This is merely a way to serve a bowl of congee, so no stirring around in pot.

Ingredients

1 celery stalk, chopped
1 bacon
1 spring onion stalk, chopped
pinch of salt
soy sauce to taste
sesame oil to taste
pepper to taste

Method

1. Grill bacon. Chop celery. Scoop up congee into a bowl add a little bit of salt and mix.

2. Chop bacon after grilling. Add chopped celery (a scoop would do), spring onions and pepper on top. A splash of soy sauce and sesame oil. Add the bacon on top.

3. Serve. And best eaten whilst it is still hot. :D

Simple Congee

When you are away from your family it is always good to know a thing or two about congee. It certainly helps. Like chicken soups, they are like the Asian version of home-cooking when you are unwell and refuse to eat that your mother usually whip out from her magical kitchen onto the bowl.

Having said that, congee does seem to be a boring dish to almost everyone that I ask. But when your mother's not around and you are sick as a dog, could be a kitchen disaster to whip up. Here's the recipe for just the congee. Any additional ingredients may be added later except for the ones you need to add early on which are listed in this recipe.

Also just to note this is not the recipe for cooking congee that restaurants usually serve. This is more like the thick chunky less watery version of congee.

NB. It would be wise to do this hours before you need to eat it.

Ingredients

1 cup of rice grains
4 cups of water (if you think you need more you can always add later)
1 tbsp of sticky rice grains (OPTIONAL)
1 carrot, cut into chunks (OPTIONAL)

Method

1. Put the rice grains and sticky rice grains inside a pot (preferably with a lid) and wash. Add water and carrot and bring to boil on high heat. You don't have to stir the ingredients around at this point so just leave it until it boils.

2. After boiling stir the content around every once in a while with a wooden spoon. This is to prevent burning the bottom of the pot. Lower heat to low to medium after congee thickens and begins to splatter around in the pot.
(note: stir at the bottom of the pot to check whether any of the congee are sticking to the pot, if you think there are chunks stuck onto the bottom carefully scrape them with the wooden spoon)

3. After a while the content should thicken and the carrot cooked well. Keep stirring and keep in mind the splattering congee because it will burn your hand. (no, seriously, it will, I've had a few scars on my hand because of it)

4. Make sure the congee is really thick and coagulated well (the way I see it all I can see is melted rice, but again that's just really vague description for reference) and then put the pot lid on. Turn heat until very high for about 10 seconds and turn off the stove.

5. Leave for about half an hour until the rice really has soaked the water and 'melted'. Stir around the pot and scrape any chunks of congee stuck on the bottom of pot.

6. Enjoy. : )

Note: If you are thinking of keeping the congee for another day or two I suggest not to add salt until you want to eat it. This is to prevent the congee from going sour. Though having said that the last time I added salt it went bad after four days. ... yes, I've done it before.

To Serve

• Grilled Bacon Congee
• Bubur Manado

To Re-Heat

Option 1: Microwave

Option 2: Steam in a steamer

Option 3: Re-heat on stove with a little bit of water and stir around until hot

Serve 1 to 2 people. May be stored for 2 or 3 days in fridge.

Another Blog

But this time I am hoping to devote this one into just the food that I've been cooking my whole life. They're simple food so you will not find anything unusual other than what I usually (forced to) cook because of time constraints and laziness. ... though when I think about it it is mostly out of utter laziness and lack of ingredients in our fridge.

I hope this will somehow help others and I may not give good explanations but I simply enjoy sharing these recipes because I wanted to. And have fun cooking! : )