Chocolate chips cookies

* Recipe adopted from Heston Blumenthal's "Heston Blumenthal At Home"

Ingredients: (Makes around 40pc of cookies with approx 1.5" to 2")

For the golden syrup chocolate chips
20g Golden Syrup
140g Whipping Cream
125 Dark chocokate, broken into small pieces (min 60% cocoa)
pinch of salt

For the cookie dough
440g Plain flour
1/2 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
1 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tbsp salt
1/2 tbsp instant coffee powder
230g cold unsalted butter, cubed
520g Caster Sugar
2 Large Eggs
1tsp Vanilla Paste

How to Make: 


Choc chips:
1. Put the syrup and cream into a saucepan and place over medium heat, Bring to simmer.

2. In the meantime, melt chocolate in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water.

3. When the cream is simmering, remove pan from heat, stir in the salt and add to the melted chocolate a third at a time, making sure the cream is thoroughly incorporated after each addition. Allow to cool slightly.

4. Pour the chocolate mixture onto baking paper-lined baking tray and allow to stand in room temperature for 1 hr, then place in freezer for 2 hr or unti frozen.

5. Remove from freezer and allow to stand for 5 min at room temperature, the cut into small cubes with a sharp knife. Keep in freezer until ready to use.


Cookies:

1. Preheat oven to 190'C.

2. Sift the flour, bicarboate of soda, baking powder, salt and coffee powder into a bowl and set aside.

3. Using a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar on medium speed unto mixture becomes light and fluffy (approx 5 min).

4. Reduce speed to low and add eggs, one at a time, and continue to mix until well incorporated, then add vanilla paste, followed by flour mixture, a spoonful at a time,

5. Mix for another 3-5 min until the dry ingredients are thoroughly incorporated and a dough is formed. Then add the choc chips and mix for a further 30 seconds.

6. Using a teaspoon, spoon the dough in the baking tray lined with baking paper, making sure to leave some space between each spoons of dough. You will need to bake a few times as one tray not enough to spoon all dough!

7. Bake in oven for 8-10min or until golden brown. Remove cookies from tray and leave them at a cooking rack to cool down. Then keep them in airtight container.


** If you are lazy to do the golden syrup choc chips, you can replace them with the ready made baking choc chips, then it will somehow affect the overall texture of your cookies. The one made with the golden syrup choc chips have a texture of soft and chewy while the one with ready made choc chips crispy and crunchy.

Enjoy with a cup of your favourite tea! 

Sautern Fruits Jelly

* Receipe adopted from Michel Roux's The Collection

Ingredients: (makes 4 cups)

Jelly:
1 medium orange
1 pink grapefruit
2 sheets of gelatine
375ml Sauterns (with a sautern quality that you love to drink yourself!)

Candied Lemon Zest:
1 lemon
50g caster sugar

How to Make:

Jelly:

1. With a very sharp knofe, remove the peel and pith from the orange and grappefruit and gently release the segments. Cut each segments into 3-4 pc. Drain the juice and keep them refrigerated until use.

2. Soften the gelatine sheets in a tray with cold water for 5 min.

3. Warm 50ml Sautern in a small pan, then take off heat. Once the gelatine sheet is softened, squeeze out excess water and stir sheets into the warm Sautern to dissolve. Leave for around 5-10 min, then stir in the rest of the Sauterns.

4. Pour them into a bowl, placed a large bowl of iced water underneath to cool, giving a quick stir every 2-3 min.

5. As soon as the wine starts to thicken (at least 15min in HK winter times!), pour it into chilled glasses. Working quickley, push the organge and grapefruit into the semi-set wine, using the point of a knife to sink the pieces to different depths, so they appear to be floating.

6. Refrigerate for at least 2 hrs.

7. Before serving, decorate the top with the candied lemon zest.

Candied Lemon Zest:

1. Peel the zest from lemon and cut into long fine julienne.

2. Pour 50ml water and the sugar in a small pan, dissolve over medium heat and bring to boil. Lower the heat, add the lemon zest and simmer gently for 6-8min to candy.

3. Drain off the syrup and lay the candied lemon out on a baking paper, so they dont stick together.

Enjoy - for adults only!

Burgundy Beef

* receipe combining methods from Paul Bocuse and Joel Robuchon

Ingredients:

2.5 pounds (1kg) blade of beef (or rump steak) cut into 3 big chunks
125g panacetta cubes
4 carrots - cut into medium size cubes
1 onions - cut into medium size squares
garlic - a few pc mashed
1 bag of pearl onions
Bouquet Garni (thyme, bay leaf, parsley tied together or inserted in a spice bag)
2-3 tbsp Juniper Berries
Parsley - minced for garnish
button mushrooms x 2 packs - cut into small cubes
tomato paste 2-3 tbsp
flour 2-3 tbsp
butter 1-2 tbsp
1 bottle of Pinot Noir (with a quality that you like to drink it!)
Beef Stock

How to Make:

1. Heat up a pot and add olive oil and a spoonful of butter. Then fry the garlic and onion until fragrant. Take these out of the pot.

2. Using the same pot, add some olive oil, then add the beef and make sure all side of the beef are browned. Then remove beef from pot and strained the oil from the beef.

3. Using the same pot, add some olive oil and stir-fried the carrots and pearl onions until soft, then add back the garlic and onion and the beef, then add the flour spoon by spoon until all absorbed, then the tomato paste, mix them well, then add the wine, (little by little), then beef broth until all ingredients are covered under the wine and broth. Lastly, add the bouquet garni and the juniper berries.

4. Bring to boil, then reduce heat to simmering heat and simmer for 1.5 hrs. Check from time to time to ensure nothing sticks to the bottom.

5. After 1.5 hrs of simmering, remove beef from pot and cut them into cubes.

6. Stir fried the bacon with the mushrooms, then add them together with the cubed beef back to the pot and continue simmer for the last 30-60min.

7. Check taste and season as per your taste with salt and pepper and even a little bit of sugar.

8. Put the stew in a ceramic type of dish or bowl which is warm and sprinkle with the minced parsley and serve!

Best to serve on a tray with some tea light candle on the bottom to keep the stew warm enough, And of course with some pasta and a glass of pinot noir!

Enjoy!

Cream of Chestnut

2019 version - garnished with pan fried chopped chestnuts & decorated with gold pieces from Kanazawa :)

Ingredients:

Italian or Japanese Chestnut (the former being more fragrant while the latter being sweeter, my personal opinion)

Chicken and Ham Stock **

Cream Fraiche

** For Vegetarian version, replace chicken stock with vegetable stock or plain water


How to Make:

1. Make the soup base 1 day ahead by using fresh old chicken + chinese ham or ham hock, 1 carrot, 1 celery and 1 onion. Blanche chicken/ham hock first, for chinese ham, blanche with some puer tea leaves. Place the blanche chicken and ham with the veg to a clean pot, cover everything with sufficient water. After boiling, reduce to medium heat and cook for approx 3 hrs.

2. Remove ingredients and once soup is cool, store at fridge overnite. Next day, you can eeasily skim off fat on top.

3. Remove skins from chestnut (which takes a really long time...), blanche until soft. Chop them into smaller pieces.

4. Add chestnuts to the soup base, bring to boil, then puree in the blender in a few batches.

5. Sieve the puree into a clean pot. Adjust consistency by keep some clean soup base. In case, the puree is too thick, you can adjust by adding some soup base to the puree soup.

6. Adjust seasoning and bring to boil again. Serve with a small spoonful of cream friache on top.

Enjoy the chestnuts when they are in the best form - in Autumn/Winter of course!

Pan Fried Scallops with Winter Black Truffles

Ingredients:

Fresh Sea Scallops from market (better to reserve the XL size one from your regular fishmongers in advance)
mash potato
cauliflower
winter black truffle
black truffle paste
black truffle olive oil


How to Make:
1. Pre-slice the black truffle and keep it in the fridge (best in your risotto container)>

2. Cauliflower - only pick the florets, blanche for 3-4 min with some salt. (best not to make them over soft but retain some crunchiness). Then drain the water.

3. Prepare the mash potato: peel skins off potato, boil them in water until soft (usually takes around 20-30min, remove water, put potato back to pot again, and then to medium heat to remove the last bit of water still inside the potato. Then mash them with a masher, adding salt, butter and milk until soft and creamy. Add a dash of black truffle olive oil too.

4. Quickly stir fried the blanched cauliflower with black truffle olive oil and 1-2 tbsp of black truffle paste.

5. Wash and wipe dry the scallops. Season them with salt. Heat up a frying pan, once hot, add some olive oil and add the scallops - each side for around 2min (without turning or stirring). Once browned, turn out to the other side.

6. Line the plate with mash potato, then the caulifower on top, then the scallops. Lastly, sprinkle the black truffle slices around the plate and serve.

Enjoy!

Roast Leg of Lamb

* reeipe adopted from Jane Hornby's "What to Cook and How to Cook it"

Serves 6-8 persons

Ingredients:
1 leg of lamb (approx 2kg)
10 cloves of garlic
handful of rosemary sprigs
carrots/ celery/onion
potatoes

Gravy:
100ml good red wine
500ml lamb/beef stock
1 tbsp redcurrant or raspberry jam

How to Make:

1. Preheat oven to 220;C.

2. Clean and dry the lamb leg. Poke around 20 holes on top of the leg with a sharp knife of around 1.5cm wide and 1.5cm deep. Poke a piece of garlic or a rosemary sprig in each of such holes. Then season well with salt and pepper.

3. Chop the celery, carrot and onion in big chunks and line them at the bottom of the baking tray. Sit the lamb on top of these vegetables, drizzle olive oil over the lamb and the vegetables and roast in the middle of the oven for 20 min.

4. Turn down oven to 190'C, pour 100ml of water over the lamb and roast for another 1 hour.

5. While the lamb is cooking, prepare the potatoes by adding mixing them with rosemary, salt and pepper and olive oil. (i prefer to use the ratte potatos from Frane and hence no need to remove skins. If you are using bigger size potatos, consider removing skin and cut into big chunks).

6. After the lamb has cooked for 1 hr at 190'C, put the potatoes into a tray on a shelf above the lamb. Cook the potato and the lamb for another 30min,

7. Take out lamb, turn the oven to 220'C to crisp up the potatoes for 5-10min. Transfer lamb leg to to a craving board and let it rest uncovered.

Gravy:
8. Sppon the excess fat from the roasting tray, then put the tray on the stove at medium heat. Add wine wine and stock, scraping up any bits from the bottom of the tray. Simmer until reduced by half and until gravy looks syrupy, then stir in the jam to make a glossy sauce. Season to taste.

Serve the lamb with the gravy and the vegetables and potatoes!

Roasted Pumpkin Soup

* receipe adopted from Gordon Ramsay's "Christmas with Gordon"

Serves 6-8

Ingredients:

Pumpkin Pureep
pumpkin - around 1.5kg
1 head of garlic - cut horizontally
Rosemay sprigs
olive oil, to drizzle

Soup:
800ml chicken ham stock **
1 onion, peeled and minced
a pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
30g Parmesan cheese, freshly grated
100ml double cream
15g butter

** For Vegetarian version, replace chicken stock with vegetable stock


How to Make:
1. Preheat oven to 170'C.

2. Cut pumpkin into half horizontally, then remove all seeds. Score the flesh, season wtih salt & pepper, then rub with the garlic halves.

3. Lay rosemary sprigs and the garlic half in each of the pumpkin half. Drizzle with olive oil and place on baking trays and roast in oven for 1 hr or until tender.

4. You can test if pumpkin flesh is soft enough with poking a fork into it. Once tender enough, remove from oven. Reserve the garlic and throw away the rosemary. Scoop out all the pumpkin flesh and puree in a food processor. (if the food processor does not move, add a bit of the chicken stock to soften it).

5. For the soup, heat some olive oil in a large pot, then add the minced onion and cook them until soft and translucent. Scoop the flesh from the garlic halves and add to the pot. Then add the grated nutmeg and saute for 1-2min.

6. Stir in the pumpkin puree and grated parmesan cheese, then pour in the stock. Bring to boil, then lower to heat and simmer for 10-12 min Stir in the cream and butter and heat for 1 min,

7. In batches, laddle the soup to the blender and blend until smooth. Pour the blended soup to a clean pot. Reheat and serve, perhaps with a dash of cream or some shavings of Parmesan cheese on top.

Enjoy~