Ginseng Chicken Soup - Final Product

1. Bring to the boil the chicken and condiments from the soup packet mix.

2. I added 3 carrots and a sliced knob of ginger. You can add any vegetables you like....

3. Simmer for 2-3 hours. I also added some cabbage at the end and white pepper for a slight kick.

I thought the soup was lacking something so asked Dad to taste test it.

Dad suggested I add some light soy sauce and/or sesame oil. I've added that to the soup I've had since then and it certainly makes a difference.

Ginseng Chicken Soup - Ingredients

1 x Macrotaste soup mix: includes panax ginseng, dioscorea opposita thunb, lycium barbarum l., nelumbo nucifera gaertn, euryal ferox salisb, astragalus membranaceus fisch, dimocarpus longans lour.

1 x whole chicken : boiled for 3 minutes to remove any inpurities and also to remove the skin. I was not very successful at removing the skin from the wings!

First flourless chocolate cake

My first attempt at baking a flourless chocolate cake - Damien Pignolet's.

I think I like Rick Steins Sunken Chocolate cake better....but I'm not sure!

Eve’s Chocolate Cake

Recipe by Damien Pignolet from Short Orders

Ingredients

12 eggs, separated

360 g best quality cooking bitter

chocolate

30 g soft unsalted butter

30 g caster sugar

cocoa powder or grated chocolate

Method

1. Preheat oven to 150C.

2. Melt the chocolate in a bowl over hot water off

the heat.

3. Beat in the butter and sugar and the yolks,

beaten for a few minutes.

4. Stiffly beat the egg whites, beat a quarter of

this mass into the chocolate base and fold in the

remaining whites.

5. Pour two thirds into the cake tin and put the

remaining mixture in the fridge covered with

plastic film.

6. Bake the cake for 40-50 minutes.

7. When the cake feels firm and springy, remove

from the oven.

8. Turn it out upside down onto a serving platter

and remove the spring form tin.

9. Allow the chocolate cake to cool for at least one

hour. The centre should fall in.

10. Fill this space with the cold remaining mixture,

dust with cocoa or chocolate and serve with

whipped cream.

Notes & Tips

For 8-10 serves you will need a 26-28 cm spring

form cake tin, which should be greased and lined

with greaseproof paper or ‘Bakewell’

Serves 8 to 10

Cooookkiiiieeeesssss

Sydney weather has been very humid and hot the past few weeks, or that could just be a very long week given my memory is failing me lately.

I've been hankering to bake some Bill Granger choc chip cookies - CP style. I say CP style as my friend CP substitutes choc chips for a real block of chocolate chopped up. Dad recently gave me some macadamias which would not be my nut of choice to just snack on. Given that my Dad highlighted how expensive macadamias are I thought I better use some up....so I've added some chopped ones in and they taste pretty good....

I'm wondering whether I should even take them into work to share now that I think these are probably the best batch so far?

CP-Soho Modified Chopped Choc Cookies (modified from bill granger's 'sydney food')

125g unsalted butter, softened 1 1/4 cups tightly packed brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence 1 lightly beaten egg

1 1/2 cups plain flour 1/2 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt 200g block of chocolate (dairy/dark/white) chopped up

Handful of macadamia nuts chopped up

******

Preheat oven to 180°c (350°F).

Beat butter and sugar in a bowl until light and creamy. Do this literally - merely mixing the butter and sugar will not work. Add vanilla and egg and stir to combine.

Stir in sifted flour , baking powder and salt until just combined. it will initially look dry but stick to the recipe. Fold through chopped choc and nuts.

Place spoonfuls (Use tablespoon for smaller bite size or larger spoons for larger cookies) of cookie mix onto a lined baking tray allowing room for expansion.

Cook for 10 (tablespoon/small cookies) - 20 mins (larger cookies) until golden.

Cool on the tray for 5 mins, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

(Makes approx 30 small cookies, or 16 larger cookies)

Toblerone Chocolate Mousse

Whenever there is a special family occasion requiring dessert, I'm normally the designated baker.  With a hectic few weeks behind and ahead of me I wanted to do something I thought would be simple and a bit different to cake....I checked my recipe books and my 'Recipes I want to try' spreadsheet and stumbled across a Toblerone Mousse a friend AL from church gave me quite a while ago.

I felt a little funny opening the nicely packaged 'Happy Father's Day' toblerone without Dad having seen it.

Having tried Bill Granger's recipe in the past for chocolate mousse, I was wondering why my friend's recipe only has cream and toblerone!  Bill's uses 5 eggs....upon confirmation from AL this morning it is VERY rich!  So I was on track thinking I should combine the recipes as follows:

400g bar of toblerone

300ml cream, whipped

25ml brandy

50ml water

4 egg whites (Bill uses 5 egg whites but why waste an egg yolk!)

4 egg yolks

1. Place the chocolate, brandy and water (oops - I just realised I left the water out and was wondering why the chocolate was looking dry! This corrected itself with the adding of egg yolks) in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of hot water.  Place over low heat and warm until chocolate has melted.  Leave to cool for 5 minutes

2. In a small clean dry bowl, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form.

3. Add egg yolks to chocolate mixture one at a time (having separated the eggs all my yolks were mixed so I added in 2 batches), beating well after each addition.  

4. Fold cream into chocolate mixture and then fold in egg whites in 2 batches, using a large metal spoon.

5. Pour chocolate mousse into serving bowls or glasses and refrigerate until set.

This made 6 large glass serves.

Served with strawberries, blueberries and more cream!

If you have a real sweet tooth - just do the chocolate and cream - that's got to be the simplest recipe ever!

 

Apricot Coconut Oat Slice

My friend AL made this for church supper one night and I've been keen to try this out myself.

I added the sliced almonds on top for added crunch!  My friends J and P seem to love it...and I think I ate 4 pieces today - yikes!

Ingredients Base

125g butter melted

1/3 cup sugar

1 cup plain flour

1/2 cup rolled oats

Ingredients Filling

2 eggs

1 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup plain flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

200g chopped dried apricots

1 cup dessicated coconut

Preheat oven to 180C

Instructions

1. Place base ingredients in a bowl and mix to combine.

2. Press mixture into a lined 20x30cm slice tin.

3. Bake for 15mins or until golden.

4. To make topping, beat eggs and brown sugar until light and fluffy.

5. Fold in flour, baking powder, apricots and coconut.  Top with sliced almonds (optional).

6. Spread the topping over the base and bake for 20-25mins or until golden. 

7. Cool in tin.  Cut into slices.  

(Makes 24)

Donna Hay Modern Classics 2 

Nothing like fried rice...

There is nothing like fried rice for comfort food and when you need to cater for a large group of hungry people!

I don't often cook this unless I have leftovers and rice, but it was a nice change to decide what to throw in.  I used jasmine rice instead of normal rice for a less gluggy and more 'fragrant' taste.

I wish I took a photo of the egg swirled around C's electric wok bubbling away!  Thanks so much C for the wok loan - can't imagine how I would have cooked it in my small frypan!

Ingredients (for 12 people)

12 cups cooked rice (6 cups uncooked) - best cooked day before

8 eggs beaten

1 onion - diced

2 cups cooked peas

1/2 wombok cabbage thinly sliced and chopped into mini strips (you can use ordinary cabbage or sliced snow peas)

400g BBQ pork - diced or thinly sliced 

1 small can of tinned corn

8 rindless rashes of bacon - diced (or chinese sausage 'lap cheong')

4 shallots - sliced

Light soy sauce

Dark soy sauce

Oyster sauce

Sesame oil

Cooking oil

Optional: Chilli soy sauce served on the side - measure 1/3 dark soy and 2/3 light soy and place fresh cut chillies in and let sit for several hours refrigerated.

 

Instructions

(I cooked this in 2 batches so halve the ingredients when you reach step 4 and repeat from step 4)

1. Heat cooking oil in a wok or large fry pan.  Swirl the beaten egg around the pan and wait until scrambled.  Lift out of pan and drain on paper towel.

2. Wipe out wok.

3. Warm cooking oil and fry onion for 1 minute, then add bacon for 1 minute, then add wombok for 30 seconds.  Lift out of wok and set aside.  The cabbage may produce water so ensure you drain the water away else this will make the fried rice soggy.

4. Heat cooking oil in wok.  Add rice and stir around to get rid of any lumps of rice and ensure the rice is warmed throughout.

5. Add light & dark soy, oyster and sesame oil.  There is no exact measurement - perhaps 2 'glugs' from each bottle.  You will need to experiment according to taste.  Start with a little and you can always add more.  Possible 2 parts soy, 1 part oyster and 1 tablespoon of sesame oil.  Stir until evenly distributed.

6. Add BBQ pork, cabbage/bacon/onion mixture and corn.  Stir well.

7. Add egg and shallots last to ensure they are not overcooked.

Fried rice ingredients could be anything from leftover BBQ chicken, beef mince, any small veges etc.  The key ingredients are the egg, rice and sauces - everything else is optional!  I wanted to add garlic and chilli but it's not to everyone's taste.