Brussels Waffle on!

Here's a Brussels waffle recipe for the waffle lovers! They're crunchy or at least they should be because this recipe is untested yet! I'll try to test it as soon as possible.

Ingredients:

• 250g flour
• 200ml milk
• 125 ml water
• 4 eggs, separated in yolks and whites 
• 100g molten butter
• 50g of sugar
• 20g fresh yeast (or dry yeast equivalent)
• 1 bag of vanilla sugar (+-5g)
• a pinch of salt

Instructions:

1. Sieve the flour into a deep mixing bowl, and mix the flour with the vanilla sugar, milk and the molten butter.
2. Put 5g of the sugar and the water in a small pan on the stove, and warm until tepid (body heat). Add the yeast. Make sure the liquid is not over body heat, otherwise you'll kill the yeast.
3. Mix the yeast water and the egg yolks into the batter.
4. Whisk the egg whites with the sugar until you get a stiff foam. Use an electric mixer, it's easiest.
5. Carefully, without stirring too much, fold the egg white foam and the salt into the batter.
6. Put a wet cloth on the mixing bowl and let the batter rise for an hour in a warm place.
7. Make a waffle iron hot, and butter it. Put in the batter, not more that 2/3s full, and bake the waffle for about 6 minutes. Don't pinch the iron so the dough can rise whilst baking.
8. Serve with powder sugar and fruits.

American Style Pancakes

Here's a quick and easy recipe for American style pancakes. I only use 50g of sugar in the recipe because pancakes are usually eaten with a sweet topping, so it's better to cut back on the sugar. You could even use no sugar at all and just eat it with fruits if you really want to cut the calories. :)

Ingredients:

• 300g of flour
• a little bag of baking powder
• a small bag of vanilla sugar or vanilla essence
• 50g of sugar
• 300ml of milk
  
• 50g of butter
• 2 eggs
• some oil for baking

How to make it:

1. Sieve the flour, the baking powder, the sugar and vanilla sugar in a large bow and mix with a whisk.
2. Melt the butter in a pan on a low heat.
3. Meanwhile, break the eggs in another smaller bowl, and give them a stir.
   
4. Add the eggs, the butter, and the milk to the sweetened flour, and mix well. You should get a thick batter, a bit like waffle batter.
5. Put some oil in a medium hot pan. With a ladle, spoon in one scoop of pancake dough and let it bake on one side. You can turn the pancake when you see bubbles appear on the top. It's slow to use only one pan, so you may want to use two pans or a baking plate if you have one to speed up the process.
   
6. Serve with fruits, jam or syrup.
   

Faux Castella, or Japanese Cake

Castella is a simple Japanese cake with a long history. The following recipe is "faux" Castella, in that it cuts a few corners to approximate the taste, but it's much easier. You'll need the following ingredients for a small loaf-sized Faux Castella:

• 5 eggs
  
• 100g of sugar, preferrably cane sugar
  
• 100g of flour
  
• 1 soup spoon honey. Use more to make the Castella sweeter, or substitute by sugar if you don't like honey
  
• 1 soup spoon of baking powder.
  

Prepre a cake mold by oiling it, and putting some sugar in the bottom. Separate the egg whites from the yolks. Beat the whites and the sugar to an airy foam in a large bowl with a mixer. Add the egg yolks one by one, whipping the mixture to keep it light. Add the honey, and stir with a wooden spoon. Slowly, bit by bit, sift in the flour whilst stirring continuously with a wooden spoon. When all the flour has been integrated well, pour it into a cake mold. Bake it for 40 minutes at 180°C. Remove it from the mold, and put the Castella in a plastic ziplock bag, or cover it with plasic foil. Like that, it should cool down without loosing too much moisture. Cut into slices and enjoy!

Pollock in a Japanese Marinade

Pollock is sometimes seen as a cheaper, but inferior alternative to cod. Wel, cheaper it certainly is, but inferior, it need not be at all! A simple way to give frozen pollock a nice taste is to marinate quickly it after thawing it. Excellent for that is the standard Japanese all-purpose marinade. For that you'll need the following ingredients:

• 2 parts of soy sauce
• 2 parts of mirin (or substitute with sweet white wine)
• 1 parts of Japanese Vinegar (or use 1/2 part regular vinegar mixed with 1/2 part water, as Japanese vinegar is half the concentration of western one)
• Dried garlic powder (or fresh garlic, but that' more work and more expensive, and doesn't make the taste all that better)

Just mix all these ingredients, and roll the thawed pollock fillets though the marinade before baking them. If you like, you can also roll the marinated filets though potato starch or flour to give a more bready taste if you like that. But don't use corn starch, it will burn and give a bad taste.

Almod Jelly aka Annin Doufu

Almond Jelly or Annin Doufu is a dessert popular in Japan. It's especially tasty and refreshing in the summer. The recipe shown here uses milk, water and almond essence to make an almond flavor. However, if you can find it, the recipe is also tasty if you replace the milk, water and almond essence with real almond milk. Almond milk and Agar agar may be difficult to find, but some natural food shops sell it. I also use canned fruits cocktail, but if you have the time to make a fresh fruits cocktail, that's even nicer, of course.

Ingredients:

• 100 ml of milk.
• 500 ml of water.
• almond essence to taste.
  
• +- 75g of crystal sugar, or less or more to taste.
  
• 2g of powdered agar-agar (kanten).
  
• one medium sized can of fruits cocktail.

Preparation:

1. Mix the milk and water in a sauce pan, put on a high fire.
2. Whilst stirring, add the sugar, almond essence and agar agar.
3. Bring the mixture to the boil, stirring regularly, and boil it for at least 5 minutes.
4. Wash a mold with cold water, and then pour the mixture inside it.
5. Let the mixture cool down a bit in the mold. The mixture will stay liquid until it has cooled down completely, so don't worry if it seems like it's not setting soon.
   
6. Put the mold with the mixture in the fridge and leave it there overnight or until it has become solid.
7. When the mixture is solid, cut it with a sharp knife into small pieces.
8. Open the can of fruits cocktail, wash it, strain it in a sieve, and pour it over the almond jelly. Stir well.
9. Enjoy! :)

Serves 2 to 4 persons.

Remarks:

The binding strength of agar agar may differ according to brand and purity. Because of this, you may need more or less of it. You may want to refer to the instructions on the on the package. If the Almond Jelly doesn't set well, you can melt it again in a pan, and add more agar agar to it. If it is too tick, use less agar agar next time.

Sweet and Spicy Shrimp

On this blog, I'd like to showcase some of my more sucessful experiments in cooking. Coocking is as much an art as it is a science, so I like to freestyle as much as possible. My focus is on making easy recipies that are relatively cheap, mostly healthy. I do not shun frozen or canned foods, because often, they are of a nutitional quality comparable to fresh foods, with added convenience.

To begin, I'd like to share my sweet and spicy shrimp recipe.


Ingredients to serve 2:

• 250 gram of frozen peeled shrimp (8 €/kg in Macro = 2 €)
• 1 Red sweet bell pepper ( 1.5€ for 3 = 0.5 )
• About 5 leaves from a Chinese cabbage (1.5 € for one cabbage -> +- 0.5 €)
• A can of mushrooms (0.5 € )

Condiments:

• Soy Sauce
• Japanese Rice Vinegar (can be substituted by half water, half plain vinegar)
• Mirin (optional, can be substituted by sweet white Porto, or some sugar syrup)
• Paprika Powder
• Garlic Powder
• Pepper
• Salt
• Hot pepper sauce (like Tabasco)
• Cayenne pepper
• 2 tablespoons of raw cane sugar
• cooking oil (grapeseed oil reccomended)

Total price

• Less than 4 € or 2 € per person.

Recipe:

1. Cut the vegetables in small pieces.
2. Defrost and clean the shrimp.
3. Fry bell pepper and Chinese cabbage in a hot, oiled deep pan or wok. Stir often.
   
4. When starting to soften up, add the shrimp and the mushrooms.
   
5. Stir, and add all condiments to taste. Try to balance sweet, sour, and spicy tastes.
6. Keep on stirring. Serve when the shrimp is well done.