Chicken Pie

This post is sponsored by Liv butter. Try Liv today!

I like to eat chicken pies. However, to make a good wholesome pie, it takes too much time to bake for myself. My children are temperamental, sometimes they eat a lot, sometimes they don't like. It's so difficult to please them. Anyway, when I invited my parents and sister with her family for dinner, I decided to make just chicken pies. Initially, I wanted to order pizza home delivery. However, on second thoughts, I decided to bake instead, since I have the time to do so. I've made many chicken pies over the years. Usually, they are made by estimation. However, I decided to include recipe in this post. The pie crust which I used - The Pie and Pastry Bible was really flaky and crispy. (I used the leftover dough to make egg tarts). It was so good my dad decided to bring back some after the dinner. I made two trays, just enough for 11 persons.

Recipe for Chicken Pies

(Makes 2 large trays)

Ingredients:

Basic Flaky Pie Crust, adapted from The Pie and Pastry Bible by Rose Levy Berandaum

(Makes a 9" deep dish, or 12-14" free from tart)
(Make 2 recipes for the chicken fillings below)

128g LIV Salted butter (if use unsalted, add 1/4tsp salt), cold & cubed
214g Plain flour
7g Distilled vinegar (or cider vinegar)
52-66g Ice water
1/8tsp Baking powder (optional. I didn't add this)

Method:

1. Place flour, salt and optional baking powder in a medium bowl, and whisk to combine.
2. Add butter and use a pastry cutter to to mix them  until resembles coarse meal.
3. Add the vinegar, followed by some ice water. Mix well with spatula. Then gently use your fingertips to mix them together. Add more water if necessary. Do not add all the water at once. I used only 50g ice water.
4. Refrigerate for at least 45mins, preferably overnight.

Chicken Fillings

(Up to your preference)

400g Chicken fillet, cut into cubes

150g Button mushrooms, sliced

250g Mixed vegetables

5 medium sized Potatoes, cubed

1 large Onions, sliced (I forgot to add this!)

3 tbsp Olive oil

3 cloves Garlic, coarsely chopped

2 sprigs Fresh rosemary, chopped

1 can Prego cream sauce of your preference 

Some black pepper

Some sea salt

Method:

1. Heat up a large wok.
2. Add olive oil, followed by garlic after the oil is hot.
3. When the garlic is fragrant, add in onion first. When it's caramelised, add in the chicken fillet. Stir fried it till half cooked, then add in potatoes.
4. Followed by mixed vegetables and mushrooms. Add in rosemary, salt and black pepper.
5. Let it cook for a while and add in Prego sauce. (I also added some chicken stock. However, it will make the mixture too wet. You may omit this.)
6. Simmer for another 3-4mins, turn the heat off.

Assembly:

1 pack of Puff Pastry (10 pcs)

8 Hard-boiled eggs, quartered

150g Mozzarella cheese, shredded

1. Remove the crust dough from the fridge at least 30mins earlier.
2. Roll it out on a silicon mat and fit it into the prepared pan.
3. Press down the dough gently and release the trapped air.
4. Topped up with the cooked chicken fillings.
5. Arrange the hard boiled eggs on top.

6. Followed by sprinkle some shredded mozzarella cheese.
7. Finally, place a few pieces of the puff pastry to cover the top.

8. Bake it in a preheated oven of 200C for 40mins, or until the crust turns brown. (As I was using glassware, it takes long. If using metal pans, 30mins at 200C should suffice.)

9. Serve and enjoy!

Durian Puffs

This post is sponsored by Liv butter. Try Liv today!

About five years ago, dad started organising a family gathering for all his siblings and their children at his place. It is usually after the seventh month of the Lunar calendar. During the first party, I made durian puffs from the leftover durians that he had given me. Since that year, every year, I will make durian puffs for his party. My relatives, big and small, all loved the puffs. However, I wasn't consistent. Every year, I used different recipe for the choux pastry. 

Perhaps my relatives who only had it once a year at the party, were full of praises for the durian puffs. I supposed it was mainly due to the quantity of good durians I have in the puffs. However, my siblings, being more picky, preferred one of the year where the puffs were very light. So I deduced that the best choux pastry I ever made was from that recipe which used more egg whites. And this year, I decided to use that recipe that produces a light and thin pastry puff. I didn't have the chance to try the puffs as two trays were snapped up in minutes. In fact, many of my relatives remembered dad's party for my durian puffs. ^~^

Therefore, here is the best choux pastry for you - Rose Levy Berandaum's Cordon Rose Cream Puff Pastry.

Recipe for Durian Puffs
Makes approx. 110 mini puffs

Choux Pastry, adapted from Rose Levy Berandaum's "The Pie and Pastry Bible".

Ingredients:
236g Water
113g Unsalted Liv Butter
1 tsp Sugar
1/2 tsp Salt
142g Plain flour
(240g) 3 large Whole Eggs + 3 Large Egg whites (I used 60g eggs with shell and came out to be approximately 258g, and I used them all.)

Method:

1. In a medium saucepan, combine the water, butter, sugar and salt and bring to a full rolling boil.
2. Immediately remove the saucepan from the heat and add the flour all at once.
3. Stir with a wooden spoon until the mixture forms a ball, leaves the sides of the pan, and clings slightly to the spoon.
4. Return the pan to low heat and cook, stirring and mashing continuously, for about 3 mins to cook the flour.
5. Without scraping the pan, empty the mixture into a mixing bowl.
6. Turn on the k-beater, and add whole eggs one at a time, followed by egg whites, beating them to incorporate after each addition.
7. The mixture will be smooth and shiny, and should be too soft to hold peaks when lifted with a spoon. If it is to stiff, add a little extra water.
8. Prepare a tray with baking sheet or silicon mat.
9. Fill a pastry bag, fitted with Wilton 1M nozzle, with the mixture.
10. Pipe puffs about 1 inch in size, and 1/2 inch apart from each other onto the sheet.
11. Bake for 10mins at preheated fan oven of 220C. 
12. Then lower the temperature to 180C, and continue baking for another 15mins or until golden brown.
13. Remove from the oven and leave it on the rack to cool completely.
Durian Fillings
200g Whipping cream
800g Durian pulps

Method:

1. Whipped the whipping cream till soft peak.
2. Add in the durian pulps, and fold to incorporate.
3. Use a handheld blender and blend the mixture till smooth.

White Chocolate Decoration
60g White chocolates, chopped finely

Method:

1. Melt the chocolates. If too dry, add some cooking oil, and mix well, till smooth.
2. Set aside for later use.

To fill the puffs:

1. Slit the bottom of the puffs with a small sharp knife.
2. Fill a pastry bag fitted with Wilton #6 round tip with the durian filling, and put it through the slit hole.
3. Gently pipe in the fillings and move the tip out as you feel the fillings being filled in the pastry.
4. Fill a paper silicon cone piping bag with white chocolate. Cut the tip.
5. Decorate the durian puffs with white chocolate and serve.

Durian Tarts

With the leftover puff pastries after making the Portuguese egg tarts, and the leftover durian fillings from the durian puffs I made for the bloggers POP, I decided to do a combination of both! I knew that if I did not use them up quickly, I'll probably keep them until they turned mouldy!

I must admit that the initial durian fillings baking in the oven really stink the kitchen! However, after a while, when the puff pastry started baking, the nice aroma filled the kitchen instead. Ummph...

The verdict? The durian filling tasted really good in the puff pastry crust! The durian fillings were still soft and moist. In fact, it's even better than the egg tarts!

My durian fillings were made for the durian puffs previously. Through my previous experience of making durian fillings, I realised that the most ideal ratio will be 5:1 durian to whipping cream. Measure the whipping cream before whipping. Having this ratio means you get to taste more of the durian pulps, at the same time, the whipped cream makes it creamy. Previously, I used to add honey to the fillings too. However, I found that keeping the real and original taste of the good durians were very important.

These were the durian puffs which I made for my dad's party two weeks ago. There were 160 mini puffs in all! They were "sold out" within minutes after I brought them out!

Portuguese Egg Tarts

Last Saturday, after my routine grocery shopping and breakfast, I decided to do some simple pastries. I just had the urge to do puff pastries. Even though I'm not very good at puff pastries, I enjoyed the tedious steps involved. And, I like puff pastries, even though I know how unhealthy it is!


So, for that morning, I decided to embark on Alex Goh's Portuguese Egg Tarts. Aloysius has been a great fan of egg tarts. Whenever my dad picks him up from school, he will buy a packet of five Crystal Jade egg tarts for Aloysius. Both of them like their HK egg tarts very much. Each egg tart cost about $1.30. But it's really nice. So to satisfied their palate, I decided to bake the Portuguese style, to make them stop eating from outside! *grin proudly*


The egg tarts really turned out very well! The egg custard was really soft, and not too sweet. Even though some of the tops were browned, it doesn't has the charred taste. The puff pastries crust was really crispy. This is definitely a keeper!

Recipe for Portuguese Egg Tarts, extracted from "Irresistible Pastry by Alex Goh".
Makes 24 regular egg tarts (regular muffin tray)

Puff Pastry


Ingredients:
(A)
400g Plain flour
50g Unsalted butter
1/8 tsp Fine salt
220g Water
(B)
300g Pastry margarine (I used only 250g)


Method:

1. Mix (A) to form a smooth dough. Let it rest for 15mins.
2. Roll out the dough into cross shape with the centre thicker and the four limbs thinner.
3. Place the pastry margarine onto the centre of the dough. Wrap it up.
4. Roll out the dough into a 10mm thickness and fold once. Let it rest for 15mins. (I skipped the resting part as I missed it when reading the instructions. It worked fine for me too.)
5. Turn the dough 90 degrees. Repeat step (4), four more times.
6. Roll out the dough into 3-mm thick. Cut the sheet into half.
7. For one of the half, roll it up like swiss roll. Chill till firm.
8. For the other half, fold them like an envelope and refrigerate for future use.

Egg Fillings

(Makes enough for half of the puff pastry above only.)

Ingredients:

100g Whipping cream

150g Whole milk

40g Fine sugar

1 Egg yolk

3 Whole eggs

1/4 Vanilla extract

Method:

1. Cook whipping cream and milk until 70C. (Feel it with your fingers. If it feels hot to the touch, it's probably about 70C. Do not boil.)
2. Stir in sugar and cook until the sugar dissolves.
3. Add it to into the beaten eggs and egg yolks.
4. Mix until well blended.
5. Lastly add in the vanilla extract. Set aside to cool completely.
6. Divide the puff pastry into 24 portions. Flatten the pastry and roll it into about 3-mm thick. Press onto the tart moulds.
7. Pour the fillings into the pastry tarts from step (5). (The fillings I made was barely enough to fill up 24 crusts, with only two tbsp per crusts, and not more! The eggs I used were small size.) 
8. Then bake at 200C for 20 mins on the centre rack. (You may place it at the lower rack. However, if there are no caramelised dots on the egg custard, move the baking tray upwards to let the tart surface take up more heat to create the caramelized dots. I baked mine on the top 2nd rack and it caramelised the whole custard!)

Cooking with herbs

Vesak Day was a day well spent for me.

School holiday started a day earlier, thanks to the Vesak Day holiday. Early in the morning, we brought the children to MacRitchie Reservoir to feel and explore the nature. My children enjoyed themselves very much, especially the eldest boy as he gets to discover the plants related to his Science subject. We spent the whole morning in the park.

In the afternoon, the kids were "sent off" to their cousin's birthday celebration at McDonald's. It was a peaceful time for me to prepare food for dinner. I invited my parents and siblings to my place for dinner. Some of the food wasn't quite well done, however, family members being family members, they took whatever was being given to them. Perhaps, they have no other choice? :p

My spouse went to JB for a short business trip earlier in the week and I asked him to help me to buy some herbs for my cooking. So I made use of three different herbs in my cooking for dinner. Here were the list of food prepared specially for my family dinner.

1. Salad with SWEET BASIL leaves
Coral red and green lettuce, honey and cherry mini tomatoes, golden raisins, onions, almond nibs, olive oil and some chopped basil leaves, plus some sea salt and ground black pepper. I found that adding basil leaves to salad really brings out a simple salad into a classier salad.

2. Curry potato wedges
Marinated potato wedges with curry powder, turmeric powder and olive oil. I have forgotten to add some salt into it and tasted a bit plain. I have also over baked it a little. I baked at 190C for 1 hour, which was too long. Should have baked it for 45mins. However, when the wedges were dipped in mayo, it changed the taste completely. It tasted really good. The curry and turmeric powder were not spicy.

3. ROSEMARY Roast Chicken

Marinated the night before with my fresh rosemary herbs, light soy sauce, honey, some ground black pepper and olive oil. With the addition of honey, it caramelised too fast and made the chicken very black way before it was cooked. Therefore, after baking, I had to remove the skin before it was being served. In future, I would omit honey, even though I like the sweet honey taste in the chicken.
[The chicken was too black to be posted here. For it might be mistaken as black chicken from the market where Chinese used it for tonic soup!]

4. Pasta with MINTS

Recently, I was quite hooked on watching Asian Food Channels (AFC) on cable. I like one of the show called French Food at Home hosted by Laura Calder. I love the way she prepares and cooks her food. They look truly gourment to me! There was this episode which I caught it half way through and tried to prepare the food. Not sure if it's correct. Here is roughly how I perceived and prepared it.

Prepare the pasta as usual. Toss the pasta in olive oil. Grind whole almonds, spearmints, peppermints and some walnuts together till rather fine. Separately grind pine nuts a little, but not too fine. Then mix them together. Next, zest an orange and a lemon into the olive oil covered pasta. Add the blended nuts in and mixed thoroughly. Also add some sea salt and ground black pepper to taste.

My family commented that the pasta is very special. It's not the usual pasta you get to take outside. It's really healthy with the nuts, at the same time, there are the freshness from the zests of the citrus fruits. I guess if you want, can add in fish fillets or prawns. I think it will taste nice too. However, the grind nuts must be reduced if seafood is added. You can use any mint leaves that is available in the supermarket. Since my spouse bought spearmints and peppermints, I just use a bit of both mints. Probably should have use more mint leaves. Also, I think walnut might not necessarily be added as it wasn't in the original recipe. Almond and pine nuts should just be nice.

5. Lemongrass Drink
Chopped 8 bulbs of lemongrass and boil it in a pot of water (approx. 2.5litres). After boiling, add sugar to taste. Let it infused and cooled. Then refrigerated it. Before serving, add a teaspoon of lime juice to the drink. Add ice and serve.

6. Chocolate Cream Eclairs
Initially I was indecisive on what desserts to prepare. I can't decide if it should be trifles or brownies. Then I happened to look through some recipe book and realised that it was a while before I made choux pastries. So I decided to make some cream puffs. I happened to see that Ju also made some puffs too! Mine wasn't as cute as hers though.

I filled my choux with whipped cream and topped it with chocolate ganache. The choux pastry was really light and thin, I like it very much.

Cooking with herbs were the theme for the day. I shall try to use herbs in my food in future, that is, if I can get my hands on them!

He's 10!

My eldest son has just turned a perfect 10! I had decided to have a simple celebration at home with my in-laws. Come to think of it, it has been a memorable 10 years for us. He was the first grandson in both my family and my in-laws. When he was a baby & toddler, he was under my parents care. My parents doted very much on him. My dad will buy some expensive stuff for him to play, while my mum will buy some expensive fish, brown rice and other foods for him. So he is quite pampered.

He has since grown from a very adorable boy, to a little pump cutie. It wasn't easy when he started going to school. He belongs to the kind that needs "pecking", nagging, canning and scolding before he will study. Initially, I will teach him during examinations or tests, after his P3, I sort of gave up. I let my spouse take over that role. I'm just too impatient to coach him anymore.


Coincidentally, after the birth of my eldest boy, my third sister bought an optical fibre christmas tree for me. Since then, I've been keeping it with me and bringing it out every Christmas. It's no exception this year. We took out the christmas tree as part of the celebration. The christmas tree with its optical fibre lights is easy to assemble and dis-assemble. It's so durable to own such a christmas tree!


The menu for the celebration party were:

1. Appetiser 1 : Oriental Salad.


2. Appetiser 2 : Baked Potatoes. The inspiration was from Elinluv's Tidbits Corner. I simplify the ingredients.


3. Appetiser 3 : Mushroom soup. The soup was very diluted as I didn't add starch to it.


4. Main : Chicken Puff Pies. Chicken pies of all sizes. I made two big, and six individual share to feed nine adults and six children. Of course there were some left overs.


5. Dessert 1 : Chocolate Rum Bars. Ya, I had lots of cakes in my fridge. Heehee... But they were not those "spoilt" ones. They were the leftovers...


6. Dessert 2 : Birthday cake as requested by the birthday boy - Oreo Cheesecake. I bought mini oreos to decorate the cake. But guess what, there was one mini oreo short!!! Goodness! I wanted to scream out "HELP!" However, when it comes to singing the birthday song, I managed to put the candle on the "flower" of the missing oreo place! *whew!* Close shave!




7. Drinks : Homemade Gourmet Lemongrass Tea. I boiled many sticks of lemongrass, let it infused overnight. The following day, I poured the lemongrass water out and add fresh water to the pot of lemongrass and boiled again. After I turned off the heat, I put lipton tea into it to let it infused, together with some sugar. Let it cooled down completely. Then mixed the first round of lemongrass water with the second round with the tea. Placed it in the fridge. Before serving, add some ice. It's very very refreshing. If you like lemongrass, try this. I'm a BIG BIG fan of lemongrass. Also, drinking lemongrass will keep mosquitoes off from you...for at least 24 hours! ;)

At the end of the evening, my sister-in-laws managed to packet some of the leftover goodies home. I'm glad they enjoyed the food. I had spent hours preparing them with the help of my domestic helper. Even though I was really tired from the preparation, I think it was really worth the effort!

All Kinds of Bakes

This week, I baked quite a lot of stuffs. However, I didn't get the chance to post them up mainly because I was really busy, a bit of lazy too! As my dad has a function on Sunday, he requested me to make the durian puffs again for his function. I made that last year and it was really very well received! As I have quite a lot of time on hand, I've decided to prepare more food for the function.


Besides durian puffs, I also made Chocolate Rice Krispies and Mini Apple Cinnamon Muffins. The Chocolate Rice Krispies wasn't very nice though as the rice krispies were a bit chewy. Fortunately the chocolate that was with it tasted good. So, there were no complaints.



I've tried this muffin recipe previously and I used it again for Apple Cinnamon. I remembered how I had my first apple cinnamon muffin from Muffin Break when I was in Melbourne more than a decade ago. To me, it was the most wonderful muffin I've ever had and from then on, it had become my favourite!




*******************

Lately, I've also been into muesli bars. Ever since my colleague gave me a muesli bar some weeks back, I've been waiting for these to be on sales at major supermarkets. Lately, I bought some Alpen and Carmen bars when they were on sales. I also recalled that granolas given by my sister some weeks back were very similar to museli bars. Therefore, I decided to make my own muesli bars! They can really be quite expensive, so I thought if I made them myself, then it should cost slightly less. Well, at least I can control what I want for the muesli. Boy, I was really glad I tried making it, it was really nice!





Recipe for Multi-grains & Fruits Muesli Bars.
Makes approximately 21 slices.

Ingredients:
150g Multi-grains
114g Raisins and Dried tomatoes, mixed*
100g Rolled oats
80g Rye flakes*
50g Dessciated coconut*
50g Sliced almonds, toasted*
20g Rice krispies, toasted*
88g Walnuts, chopped, toasted*
50g Duo Chocolate Chips
3 tbsp Honey
15tbsp Light Corn Syrup, approximately

Method:
1. Mix all the dry ingredients well.
2. Add in honey and light corn syrup, and mix well, like lumps.
3. Pack them and arrange them on a tray, approx 14” x 8”, lined with baking paper.
4. Bake at 180C for about 15mins or until it turns brown.
5. Cooled, and sliced them according to preference.

*Note: Ingredients are up to you to add. Just make sure there are a good mix of nuts and dried fruits to have a balance in taste!