Wednesday, December 23, 2020
Sunday, December 13, 2020
I really wanted to make some time to do some Christmas baking when I had a day off last week as in the past I would have made several festive treats by now and I hadn’t done anything yet! These reindeer cupcakes are really easy, the key ingredient is the pretzels - and you can make the cakes themselves any flavour you like!
I made chocolate cakes using this recipe on the BBC Good Food site and made a simple chocolate buttercream.
When the cakes were baked and cooled I topped with a spoonful of buttercream and used salted caramel flavour chocolate coated pretzels (made by Flipz, available in most supermarkets) for the reindeer’s antlers. You can use regular pretzels as well but I thought these went better with the cake!
For the face you can use a Smartie or M&M for the nose but I didn’t have any and these were a spur of the moment bake so I used some icing I had coloured red and used a little piping bag to pipe on the rest of the face. Some of the reindeer have slightly odd expressions but my daughter liked them and so did my husband!
Wednesday, December 9, 2020
Wednesday, December 2, 2020
Sunday, November 22, 2020
Thursday, November 19, 2020
Sunday, November 8, 2020
Thursday, November 5, 2020
I’ve been trying to bake along with Great British Bake Off this year and wasn’t particularly looking forward to pastry week as I don’t make particularly good pastry - I’m rubbish at kneading I think! Until I saw that the bakers were making choux pastry and specifically eclairs. Given I have an eclair pan and a book called Secrets of Eclairs - both from the pre-parenting days when I had a lot more time to bake - I had no excuse not to join in!
Eclair pans are not exactly a necessary piece of baking equipment but they do help keep your piping straight and a uniform size and the tin I used is quite heavy with curved edges which keep it stable.
As for the recipe book, it’s a small volume but has some detailed explanations of the equipment and techniques you need to make eclairs, plus recipes for different flavoured pastries and fillings.
I was quite limited by what I had in the house - if I want to bake in the same week as the GBBO episode then I need to either decide before I’ve seen the show what I am going to make (so not really a bake along) or make do with what I have got in the house - I’m trying to avoid extra trips to the shops due to Covid!
That left me with plain eclairs with a chocolate filling and white icing on top - nice and traditional.
Making choux pastry is actually quite straightforward and quick but the tricky bit comes with deciding how much egg to add. The recipe I used said you needed up to two eggs, and to beat them together and add gradually until you get the right consistency. I felt I needed to use all the egg, so wasn’t sure if that was right and I should have used less, but it turned out well!
I did end up having to make two batches and in true GBBO style, bin the first lot and start again. Bizarrely for such a detailed recipe book with extensive explanations of each step, the basic recipe for choux pastry at the front of the book omits any cooking time! So I went by the time in one of the flavoured recipes later in the book and the eclairs came out very overbaked so I started again and reduced the cooking time significantly.
I made simple icing from icing sugar and water which looked ok at first but once it had set it was almost transparent and I think I should have made it much thicker or done a few layers. I would have preferred to make the traditional chocolate icing but didn’t have the ingredients as this was a last minute bake! The texture of the choux was quite good and they did taste nice, though they were a lot smaller than shop-bought eclairs. This was the size guided by my eclair pan so I can only assume that shop-bought eclairs use some sort of industrial equipment and bake in a size that can't really be replicated at home. If that's not the case and you are a whizz with eclairs, let me know in the comments below!
Saturday, October 3, 2020
Kapuso Mo, Jessica Soho: Katakam-takam na papaitan! Paano magluto ng Vigan Sinanglao?Paano Magluto ng San Nicolas, Ilocos Norte?Ano ang Cardiac Papaitan sa Navotas City?See other Featured Videos; Vigan Bagnet, Paano magluto ng bagnet ng mga IlocanoLechon Kambing at Iba pa... Tuna Lechon at Iba pa...
Tuesday, September 29, 2020
Thursday, September 24, 2020
MasterChef Australia· How to Break Down a Whole FishThe king of fish breaks down a kingfish, "Tanguige".See other Featured Videos; Vigan Longganisa, Alamin ang tradisyunal na paraan sa paggawa ng Vigan longganisa!Vigan Bagnet, Paano magluto ng bagnet ng mga IlocanoLechon Kambing at Iba pa... Tuna Lechon at Iba pa...
Saturday, September 19, 2020
Pork Stirfry with Mushroom. One of the costlier pork cut is the tenderloin. Pork tenderloin or “Lomo” is a long boneless pork cut about medium size soft drink bottle. The tenderloin contains very little fat, it is very tender but will taste dry if overcooked it doesn’t have any fat to keep it juicy as it cooks. Because tenderloin cooks fast, it is good dish for strifry and for people in a hurry.
Wednesday, September 16, 2020
Pinas Sarap: Alamin ang tradisyunal na paraan sa paggawa ng Vigan longganisa! Vigan longganisa, paano nila ito ginagawa ng walang ginagamit na makinarya.See other Featured Videos from Pinas Sarap; Vigan Bagnet, Paano magluto ng bagnet ng mga IlocanoLechon Kambing at Iba pa... Tuna Lechon at Iba pa...
Tuesday, September 15, 2020
Monday, September 14, 2020
Dinengdeng with Inihaw na Isda, Inihaw na Samaral. Dinengdeng is a simple Ilocano boiled vegetable with bagoong na isda dish. It is usually made up of a medley of garden vegetables that are in season. Kinds of vegetables are usually the vegetables mentioned on the folk song Bahay Kubo, no Baguio vegetables, like cabbage, carrots, coolly flower, ect. The combination of vegetables is limitless, use
Saturday, September 12, 2020
Tahong Lugaw. I had this cooked mussels form the supermarket, it is shelled and ready to eat. In Australia and perhaps in other places pre-cooked and marinated mussels are served as appetizer or ingredient for salads. I thought I could use it on my next Pinoy Lugaw/Porridge Dish. Tahong or mussels are best cooked with lots of ginger, so with Lugaw or Arroz Caldo therefore tahong as main meat
Thursday, September 10, 2020
Pinoy Ham Bone Macaroni Soup. There is some Ham Bones sitting in the ref. for some time now. Today I decided to make a Macaroni Pasta Soup out of the Ham Bones. Ham bones will make great soup dish, the only problem is Ham Bones require to be slow cooked for hours to extract the flavors from the already dried out meats from the bones. Cooking should be fairly easy except of course for the extra
Wednesday, September 9, 2020
Pinas Sarap: Paano magluto ng bagnet ng mga Ilocano! Kapag pumunta ka sa Ilocos, hindi puwedeng aalis ka nang hindi nakatitikim ng masarap nilang bagnet! Paano nga ba magluto ng bagnet ang mga Ilocano? Alamin 'yan sa video na ito! See other Featured Videos from Pinas Sarap; Lechon Kambing at Iba pa... Tuna Lechon at Iba pa...
Sunday, September 6, 2020
Thursday, September 3, 2020
Roast Pork Belly, Pork Belly Lechon sa Oven. Today I want to share a simple roasting method of Pork Belly, Pinoy lechon style. This is much simpler than my previous oven lechon dishes that we have cooked in the fast. Check my previous roast pork dishes by clicking the list link below. Lechon sa Oven Lechon sa Oven Inasal Style Roast Pork Leg, Pinoy Lechon Style Roast Pork Tocino Style Lechon
Tuesday, September 1, 2020
Pork Binagoongan sa Gata. I have already a few post of Binagoongan dish in the archives. But for today we are going to make Pork Binagoongan with Gata. This Pork Binagoongan sa Gata recipe may be similar to some version of Bicol Express, on some ingredients because of the addition of coconut cream to the recipe. But if you are actually looking for a recipe of Bicol express we have several
Monday, August 31, 2020
Pinapaitan with Tanglad. This is the first time that I added tanglad to my papaitan. I have read somewhere that some versions of papaitan in the Visayas and Mindanao uses tanglad to remove the gamely taste of the beef innards, and of course for added flavor. Tanglad is widely used in the Visaya dishes, tanglad is the main aromatic ingredient of their famous tinowa dishes, the closest to dish to
Friday, August 28, 2020
Thursday, August 27, 2020
Pink Salmon Sotanghon Noodle Soup. This one is another classic Pinoy breakfast dish in the Philippines we usually used local variety of canned salmon. For today’s dish we are going to use The canned pink salmon variety which that is more readily available when you are overseas. We had already a similar dish in the archives but that version was loaded with a lot of vegies. Now we are making our
Pinoy Garlic Buttered Mix Seafood. This dish was inspired from a similar dish serve during a Bohol trip. This was the famous Loboc River Cruise, The boats are actually a floating restaurant serving a lunch buffet, with a tour on the Loboc river and live music while having your lunch.The lunch buffet this was the seafood, the mixed seafood in particular. That seafood was a cocktail of various
Sunday, August 23, 2020
Baked Rigatoni Pinoy Style. Rigatoni is a ridged tube shaped pasta with wide diameter holes large enough to capture pieces of meat sauce. The ridges on the outside tube walls allow it to hold more sauce. Today I want to share my version of Baked Rigatoni Pinoy Style using my tried and tested Pinoy meat sauce that I have used on my other baked pasta recipes.Below are step by step recipes of my
Sunday, August 16, 2020
Overseas Pinoy Cooking has over 1,000 recipes in the archives. It would be impossible to browse all the recipe if readers have arrived here,and looking for the best recipe to her or his preference or liking. One solution that I have thought was to create a food category video consisting of photos of our best recipes for that particular video. The work is in progress, that we have started a few
Tuesday, August 4, 2020
Monday, July 27, 2020
These were all questions running through my head when it was agreed we would go back in to the office last week to pick some belongings up.
I work in London - though I'm not sure if I should now say I used to work in London, as it seems a lifetime ago! At some point we will return to the office and I will have to get used to commuting again but at the moment I'm enjoying the time at home. Lockdown for me currently feels very different now my daughter is back at nursery, compared to the first three months while my husband and I were trying to work and look after a two-year-old - but I've definitely been luckier and had it easier than many.
So fast forward to July and I was looking forward to seeing my colleagues again, but with some trepidation. Thankfully I could get to the office by overground trains and didn't have to take the tube, and was able to avoid rush hour when I travelled. So there was only a handful of people on each train - though I was dismayed to see a few people not wearing masks. Of course, you can't tell if they are exempt or just refusniks - but my gut feeling said the latter.
My boss and I had arranged to meet for lunch, so the first challenge was finding somewhere that was actually open. There are a few articles online about which London pubs are currently open, but they tended to pick out certain venues with large gardens or in touristy areas - and what I needed was one close to the office. Luckily the pub companies have all updated their websites showing which of their locations are open, and what coronavirus measures they are taking.
The Paternoster, a Young's pub on Paternoster Square, was open and seemed ideal. It was very quiet on a weekday lunchtime so there was no difficulty finding somewhere to sit more than a metre apart from other tables - and we had a big enough table that we could sit a metre apart from each other. The pub asked for contact details for one of us on arrival, and encourages the use of their app to order and pay for meals. The server wasn't wearing a mask but put our food and drink down at one end of the table for us to reach across to get our own, which seemed very sensible.
Other than that, the whole experience didn't seem very different to usual - though I can imagine going for a drink in the evening is not like it used to be.
For lunch I had a fishfinger sandwich - for some reason I never think to make that at home but I often choose it when having a pub lunch! The fish was cod pieces in a beer batter (i.e. not the kind of fishfingers you have in the freezer at home) in lovely doorstep slices of bread, though the bread fell apart a little before I'd even got part way through the sandwich. Tartar sauce and lettuce were the perfect accompaniments and the proffered side order of chips made this a very satisfying lunch. Not as satisfying though as actually being able to eat out with someone for the first time in four months!
Wednesday, July 15, 2020
Sunday, January 26, 2020
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