Tamales: The Daring Cooks January Challenge.

Tags

beef filling, Broth, corn husks, daring cooks, Latin American, masa dough, masa harina, Mexican cuisine, roasted poblanos, shredded beef, stuffing tamales, Tamale, tamale filling, tomatillos

 

 

Maranda of Jolts & Jollies was our January 2012 Daring Cooks hostess with the mostess! Maranda challenged us to make traditional Mexican Tamales as our first challenge of the year!

Very thanks for Maranda for this opportunity to make the Tamale. Tamales were on my must do recipes for a while, since I can’t buy any Tamales from stores or any place they sell these because either of the pork filling they use or even the pork lard they use in the masa. So it was one of the recipes on my list to do at home for a long time, but with my busy schedule lately, I couldn’t make it until I saw the challenge and said its time…

Tamales are well-known at this time of the year, and every region of Latin America has it’s own version of the tamales. Served at the conclusion of Mexican las Posadas celebrations on Christmas Eve, family and friends gather together for making tamales. Good tamale is measured by the quality of it’s masa or corn dough. The light airy, with a distinctive billowy texture masa dough is considered the excellent.

Masa, the Mexican word for the corn dough used to make tamales, is a mixture of fat, a leavener, and either masa harina or fresh masa whipped together.
Fresh masa is made from corn that’s first sun-or fire-dried, then cooked and soaked overnight before being rehydrated in pickling lime. finally, it’s ground and pressed into large blocks. It’s perishable from any local Mexican market, so keep it refrigerated.
Masa harina is the dried version of fresh masa. A long shelf life makes it widely available, but be sure to buy the masa harina and not the instant masa, which has fats and leaveners already added.

You don’t need to set a big time in making tamales, make your self free with preparing them in stages. Start with the filling then make the masa dough.

Tackling the tamale is super simple. Corn husks are the tamale wrapper, look for the big ones and set aside the one with holes, these are perfect for tying the tamale after soaking them in water.
Steam tamale in a pot tall enough to allow them to stand up when the led is in place. You can use a vegetable steamer.
Two things critical during steaming tamales, don’t let water touch the tamale or they will be dense, heavy, and water logged. Second, periodically check to see that your water hasn’t boiled away, leaving a dry pot. Add more water if there’s no steam rising when you sneak peak. I used glass cover.

Mexican Tamales

Beef and Corn Chile Tamale Filling:

1\2 cup diced onion
1 table spoon olive oil
1 tablespoon minced garlic
I large red tomato, seeded and diced
2 poblano chile pepper, roasted, seeded, and diced (less heat than jalapeno, Anaheim, or Serrano but you still can use these if you prefer)
2 tomatillos roasted, skin removed, and diced
1 cup frozen corn, washed
shredded cooked beef (recipes down)
1 cup chopped cilantro leaves
1\2 teaspoon black pepper

Start with roasting the poblanos and tomatillos in the oven, it will take 10 min. under the broiler on 500 f. after roasting take out the outside skin and the seeds for the chile, then dice.
Sweet the onion in oil, uncovered over medium heat,until softened. Add the garlic, sauté a little more, then add the red tomato. Bring mixture to simmer covered for 5 min. Add the poblano chile and the tomatillos, stir and season with salt and pepper. With a blender, blend the sauce until it’s smooth.

Stir in the corn, cilantro and shredded beef, chill in the fridge, the filling must be completely cold.

for cooking the beef:

1 lb beef chuck roast, cut into large cubes
1\2 yellow onion, quartered
4-5 whole black pepper
2-3 whole bay leaves, dried
1\2 stick cinnamon
2-3 whole cardamom

Boil the beef cubes in about 4 cups hot water(using pressure cooker), add all the ingredients, cover and cook the beef for 20-25 min.
Remove the cubes from the broth, reserve the broth for the masa harina dough. Season the beef with salt and pepper. After cooling, shred the beef with forks.

for the masa harina dough:

9 tablespoon cold vegetable shortening, like Crisco
1 stick cold unsalted butter
1 1\2 teaspoon salt
1 1\2 teaspoon baking powder
3 1\4 cups masa harina
1 teaspoon anis seeds
1\2 teaspoon garlic powder
1\2 teaspoon onion powder
2 1\2 cups beef broth
corn husks soaked in hot water

Start with the corn husks. Separate and keep the largest. Place the husk in large pot filled with hot water, keep the husks covered completely with water and set aside to let soak for at least 3 hours.

combine shortening , butter, salt and baking powder for the masa harina dough in the bowl of stand mixer, beat with the paddle attachment until mixture is fluffy and light. Continue beating while slowly sprinkle in masa harina, with the mixer still running, slowly add 2 1\4 cups of the broth, scraping the bowl sides, this will take about 5 min.

Drop a teaspoon of the dough in cold water to test whether you’ve incorporated enough air into the dough. If the dough floats, it’s ready, if not beat the dough 1-2 min more.
Slowly beat in the remaining broth into the masa dough, the dough is ready when it’s the consistency of thick cake batter.Cover the bowl and refrigerate for 1 hour.

working with 1 husk at a time, place a husk smooth side up with narrow end toward you . scoop 1\4 cup masa dough onto upper third of the husk.
spread the dough in a square with 1 inch border between the masa and the top of the husk, wet fingers or spoon works best to spread the dough. Spoon 2 teaspoon of the filling down the centre of the masa dough.
Bring long sides of the husks together, rolling dough over filling to seal it, holding edges of the long sides of the husk together, roll together to encase the dough and filling.Fold bottom third of the husk toward the center, tie in place with a torn strip of husk.

place tamales upright in the steamer, don’t pack the tamales too tight, they need the room to expand. Add extra husk to fill in any open space, cover and reduce the heat and let water to simmer.
Steam the tamales for 1 1\4- 1 1\2 hours. Tamales are done when they’re firm and husks easily pull away from masa.

Serve with salsa verdi, some avocado cubes and crumbles queso cheese on top

The Daring Cooks’ December, 2011 Challenge: CHICKEN CHA SUI & CHA SUI BAO

Tags

Baking, barbecue chicken, buns, Chicken Char Sui Bao, daring cooks

 

Our Daring Cooks’ December 2011 hostess is Sara from Belly Rumbles! Sara chose awesome Char Sui Bao as our challenge, where we made the buns, Char Sui, and filling from scratch – delicious!

It’s been a while since the last post I did, very sorry for that. keeping track of posting is very tough ,especially with full everyday schedule. I was very busy that I couldnt even open the internet, but will try to keep on as I can and manage my time.

Today post is my favourite recipe, I did it before several times, and every time tried different flavours for the barbecue. They are my favorite for many reasons:
First of all and the important, these are my kids favorite…
Adorable, satisfying, and convenient for everyday snacks…
Great as lunch box meal for the school…
Delicious…
Barbecue on the go…

For the recipe, I made the chicken barbecue with asian flavour. First I marinade the chicken with soya and teriyaki sauce, then baked the chicken in the oven bag, this make the very tender and flavorful. I did the same dough recipe that was given in the challenge and I love, the dough was very successful and the buns turned on very soft and delicious.

Many thanks for Sara for the great recipes and challenge.

Chicken Char Sui Bao

2 small whole chicken
4 large cloves of garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon (3 gm) ginger, grated
1 tablespoon corn oil
1 ½ tablespoons honey
1\4 cup soy sauce
1\4 cup teriyaki sauce
1 teaspoon oyster sauce
½ teaspoon ground black pepper
½ teaspoon five spice powder
1 teaspoon paprika
1\2 teaspoon cardamom

to do the barbecue chicken bun filling
1 small yellow onion minced very fine
1 cup chicken stock(that formed in the bag from baking the chicken)
1 tablespoon teriyaki sauce
1 tablespoon soya sauce
1 tablespoon cornflour

Clean the chicken. Place the chicken in oven bag, add all the ingredient for the marinade except the onions. With a sharp knife tip, stick the chicken on every side, this will flavour the inside of the chicken meat. Place the chicken in the refrigerator to let marinade overnight.
Bake the chicken in 450 f oven, for 3\4 an hour. It depends also on the size of the chicken(mine was small). Open the bag and put the oven under the broiler until browned.

Let the chicken to cool down a little, and make sure to save some of the stock that formed in the oven bag. Take off the bones and skin from the chicken, and with 2 forks shred the chicken meat into small pieces.
In a small sauce pan, add corn oil then the minced onions,sauté until lightly golden. Add 1 cup of the chicken stock that came down from the barbecue. Add some more soya and teriyaki. In separate cup add 3 tablespoon water to the cornflour, mix very well, add the mixer to the sauce in the pan. Stir and let it thickened alittle. Add the shredded chicken, mix it with the barbecue sauce, set aside to make the buns dough.

Dough Ingredients

2½ teaspoons (8 gm/1 satchel) of dried yeast
¼ cup (55 gm/2 oz) sugar
½ cup warm water
2 cups (280 gm/10 oz) plain flour
1 egg (medium size – slightly beaten)
3 tablespoons oil
½ teaspoon (3 gm) salt
Egg wash: 1 egg beaten with a dash of water
(1 cup=240 ml, 1 tablespoon=15 ml, 1 teaspoon=5 ml)

Place the sugar and warm water in a bowl, mix until the sugar has dissolved. Add yeast and leave it for 10 – 15 minutes until it becomes all frothy.
Sift flour in to a large bowl.
Add yeast mixture, egg, oil and salt and stir. Bring the flour mixture together with your hands.
Place dough on a lightly floured surface and knead for approximately 10 minutes. The dough should be smooth and slightly elastic.
Place in a lightly oiled bowl and cover with a damp cloth. Leave to rise until it is double in size. This will take from 1 – 2 hours depending on weather conditions.
Once dough has doubled in size knock back and divide in to 12 portions and shape in to round balls.

Use a rolling pin to roll out to approximately 5cm (2 inches) in diameter. Then pick the piece of dough up and gently pull the edges to enlarge to about 8cm (3 inches) in diameter
By doing this it keeps the dough slightly thicker in the centre. This means when your buns are cooking they won’t split on the tops.
Place a good sized tablespoon of filling on the dough circle. Then gather the edges and seal your bun. Place the bun seal side down on your baking tray.

Continue with rest of dough. Once all buns are complete brush surface with egg wash. Place in a preheated oven of 200º C/392º F for 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Cooking with Tea: The Daring Cooks November Challenge

Tags

beef rolls, cabbage salad, cooking with tea, daring cooks, main dish, tea vinaigrette

Tea is one of the oldest ingredients used in the kitchen – and at the same time, one of the newest.
Cooking with tea, is all about bringing this remarkably versatile, healthful, and flavorful ingredient into our food. cooking with tea doesn’t meant that the food will entirely taste as tea, but it will improve the flavors, and add something more.
Cooking with tea, let us looking at it from another way outside the cup. Tea can be used to flavor many  savory dishes from appetizers to main dishes, tea has now a wide usage in deserts too.

Sarah  from Simply Cooked was our November Daring Cooks’ hostess and she challenged us to create something truly unique in both taste and technique! We learned how to cook using tea with recipes from Tea Cookbook by Tonia George and The New Tea Book by Sara Perry.

This is my first time to cook with tea, many thanks to Sarah for giving us the opportunity. I’m very pleased with the dishes I made using the tea as either one of the ingredient or as a cooking technique, the tea gave an extra flavors to the meat, plus it was a good and a daring step to include it in the salad dressing.

Apple and Cabbage Salad with Lemon Tea Vinaigrette

1 apple cut into quarters, then thinly sliced
red cabbage thinly shredded
1 cup fresh arugula
pecan

for the lemon tea vinaigrette:

2 bags spiced lemon tea
2 tablespoon apple cider
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoon olive oil
1\4 teasoppn powdered ginger
1\2 teaspoon sugar
salt and fresh ground black pepper

To make the lemon tea vinaigrette, steep the tea bags in 1\4 cup hot water for 2-3 hours. Whisk together, all the ingredient for vinaigrette with the steeped tea, set aside.
On a salad plate, toss the cabbage, apples slices, and the arugula with the vinaigrette, season with salt and pepper, serve immediately with sprinkle of some pecan on the top.

Beef Rolls with Orange Tea

3 bags spiced orange tea
2 thick cut beef tenderloin
2 tablespoon steak spices (include garlic and pepper)
fresh rosemary
1 tablespoon white vinaigrette
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 green bell pepper,sliced
2 large carrots, cut into slices lengthwise
2 tablespoon tomato paste
1 teaspoon soya sauce
1 tablespoon barbecue sauce
1 teaspoon corn starch

Place the tea bags in 1 cup hot water, let steep for about 2-3 hours.
Meanwhile, slice  the tenderloin steak in half lengthwise, the butterfly cut, or not all the way to the end. Place each strip, cut side up, between 2 pieces of plastic wrap and pound with the smooth side of a meat mallet or a heavy saucepan until flattened to about 1/8 inch thick. Season the beef slices with the steak spices, rosemary, white vinaigrette, olive oil, and 1\2 cup of the steeped tea, let marinade for at least an hour in the fridge.

On a large wide sauté pan, heat 1 tablespoon olive oil, add the carrots strips, sauté for 2-3 minutes, then add the pepper slices, sauté for 1 minute.
To prepare rolls, lay a piece of beef on a work surface. Place some of the carrots and bell pepper crosswise on the beef. Roll the beef around the vegetables, support with tooth picks.

Place the roll, seam-side down, on the sauté pan, brown beef rolls over medium heat, turning to brown evenly. Transfer beef to a plate. Add the tomato paste into the pan, sauté for 1 min to give all the flavors of the sweet tomato paste, carefully add the remaining steeped tea, the corn starch, the barbecue sauce, and the soya, beating vigorously with a whisk until sauce is smooth and slightly thickened. Season to taste.

Pour some of the sauce over beef rolls, serve with some mashed potato in the side.

Fresh, Fluffy, French Croissant Daring Bakers September Challenge.

Tags

Baking, bread, breakfast, chocolate, daring bakers, french croissant, pastry

 

The Daring Bakers go retro this month! Thanks to one of our very talented non-blogging members, Sarah, the Daring Bakers were challenged to make Croissants using a recipe from the Queen of French Cooking, none other than Julia Child!

This Challenge was terrific. I wanted to try the croissant a long ago, but there was always no time, I know it will take too much time in preparing the dough, may be this was the reason I didn’t do it until the challenge, but finally I did it, Thank you Sarah for letting us do the honor to make these jewels of croissants.

I followed Sarah recipe and steps except for preparing the butter block, I did the same measurement for the folding the dough though, but found that the final pieces too small, I cut the salt in half since I found it too much for the amount of flour, I twice let the dough sit in the fridge overnight.

The final results was amazingly good, I liked the croissant and the little pockets inside, the croissant was light and fluffy from inside crisp and flacky from outside, I used some dough to make chocolate croissants and pain au chocolate, my kids loved it too, that those beauty didn’t stay for the next morning hahah …

Will definitely be making these goodies again.
Here you will find the recipe as in Db by Sara with tip and vedio clip for Julia Childs, down I wrote the recipe with some improvements and did the correct size for this batch of dough to make a decent medium size croissants for the next time I will do it.

Fresh, Fluffy, French Croissant

Preparation checking outlines

Making dough, 10 mins
First rise, 3 hours
Kneading and folding, 5 mins
Second rise, 1.5 hours (or overnight in the fridge)
Rolling in the butter (turns one and two), 15 mins
First rest, 2 hours
Turns three and four, 10 mins
Second rest, 2 hours (or overnight in the fridge)
Forming croissants, 30 mins
Final rise, 1 hour (or longer in the fridge)
Baking, 15 mins
Ingredients
¼ oz (7 gm) of fresh yeast, or 1¼ teaspoon (6¼ ml/4 gm) of dry-active yeast (about ½ sachet)
3 tablespoons (45 ml) warm water (less than 100°F/38°C)
1 teaspoon (5 ml/4½ gm) sugar
1 3/4 cups (225 gm/½ lb) of strong plain flour (I used Polish all-purpose flour, which is 13% protein)
2 teaspoons (10 ml/9 gm) sugar
3\4 teaspoon (7½ ml/9 gm) salt
½ cup (120 ml/¼ pint) milk (I am not sure if the fat content matters. I used 2%)
2 tablespoons (30 ml) tasteless oil (I used generic vegetable oil)
½ cup (120 ml/1 stick/115 gm/¼ lb) chilled, unsalted butter
1 egg, for egg wash
Directions:
Mix the yeast, warm water, and first teaspoon of sugar in a small bowl. Leave aside for the yeast and sugar to dissolve and the yeast to foam up a little.
Measure out the other ingredients
Heat the milk until tepid (either in the microwave or a saucepan), and dissolve in the salt and remaining sugar
Place the flour in a large bowl.
Add the oil, yeast mixture, and milk mixture to the flour
Mix all the ingredients together using the rubber spatula, just until all the flour is incorporated
Turn the dough out onto a floured surface, and let it rest a minute while you wash out the bowl
Knead the dough eight to ten times only. Smacking the dough on the counter (lots of fun if you are mad at someone) and removing it from the counter using the pastry scraper.
Place the dough back in the bowl, and place the bowl in the plastic bag
Leave the bowl at approximately 75°F/24°C for three hours, or until the dough has tripled in size.
After the dough has tripled in size, remove it gently from the bowl, pulling it away from the sides of the bowl with your fingertips.
Place the dough on a lightly floured board or countertop, and use your hands to press it out into a rectangle about 8 by 12 inches (20cm by 30cm).
Fold the dough rectangle in three, like a letter (fold the top third down, and then the bottom third up)
Place the dough letter back in the bowl, and the bowl back in the plastic bag.
Leave the dough to rise for another 1.5 hours, or until it has doubled in size. I let the dough rise overnight in the fridge.
Cut the butter into pieces, put between two sheets of plastic or wax paper. Use a rolling pin to tap the butter until it’s soft enough to roll, roll between the two sheets until it’s a 7.5X7.5inch square. Put in fridge.
Remove the dough from the fridge and place it on a lightly floured board or counter. Let it rest for a minute or two.
Roll the dough out until its double size of the butter sheet, 11X11inch in this case. Tap butter until it’s roll-able, and the texture is similar to the dough. put the butter in the middle of the dough as following, fold up dough and seal the butter. Pay attention to corners and edges, you don’t want spots where there’s no butter.
Roll out the dough package (gently, so you don’t push the butter out of the dough) until it is again about 14 by 8 inches.
Again, fold the top third down and the bottom third up.
Wrap the dough package in plastic wrap, and place it in the fridge for 2 hours.
After two hours have passed, take the dough out of the fridge and place it again on the lightly floured board or counter.
Tap the dough with the rolling pin, to deflate it a little

Roll the dough package out till it is 14 by 8 inches (35 cm by 20 cm).
Fold in three, as before
Turn 90 degrees, and roll out again to 14 by 8 inches (35 cm by 20 cm).
Fold in three for the last time, wrap in plastic, and return the dough package to the fridge for two more hours (I let it overnight)
It’s now time to cut the dough and shape the croissants
First, lightly butter your baking sheet so that it is ready
Take the dough out of the fridge and let it rest for ten minutes on the lightly floured board or counter
Roll the dough out into a 16 by 8 inch rectangle
Cut the dough into four rectangles (each 8 by 4 inches ).
Cut the rectangle into two triangle
Stretch the triangle out a little, so it is not a right-angle triangle, but more of an isosceles.
Starting at the wide end, roll the triangle up towards the point, and curve into a crescent shape.
Place the unbaked croissant on the baking sheet
Repeat the process with the remaining squares of dough, creating 8 croissants in total.
Leave the tray of croissants, covered lightly with plastic wrap, to rise for 2-3 hours.
Preheat the oven to very hot 475°F/240°C/gas mark 9.
Mix the egg with a teaspoon of milk
Spread the egg wash across the tops of the croissants.
Put the croissants in the oven for 12 to 15 minutes, until the tops are browned nicely
Take the croissants out of the oven, and place them on a rack to cool for 10 minutes before serving.