Daring cooks go satay...

The January 2010 DC challenge was hosted by Cuppy of Cuppyliciousand she chose a delicious Thai-inspired recipe for Pork Satay from the book 1000 Recipes by Martha Day. Being vegetarian I adapted it for a paneer-satay which I served as appetiser and some tofu-satay which got brown bagged into a sammich! Yumm ..

Satay (or sate) is very often served as “street fare” all over the world, and you dip your cool little meat/veggie skewer into any variety of dipping sauces

The required part of this challenge is to marinate to add awesome flavor to the paneer/tofu . I made the marinade from scratch as follows:

Satay Marinade

1/2 small onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 T ginger root, chopped (optional) (2 cm cubed)
2 T lemon juice (1 oz or 30 mls)
1 T soy sauce (0.5 oz or 15 mls)
1 tsp ground coriander (5 mls)
1 tsp ground cumin (5 mls)
1/2 tsp ground turmeric (2-2.5 mls)
2 T vegetable oil (or peanut or olive oil) (30 mls)

Chop the onions, garlic and ginger really fine then mix it all together in a medium to large bowl.

Make about 1 inch strips of the paneer and tofu and marinate for 2-4 hours turning it around occasionally . I grilled them in my panini press and they turned out to be quite scrumptious ! I cannot believe I forgot the sauces/dips but in my defense the satay were amazing by themselves . Nevertheless, for posterity's sake Im pasting the sauce recipe here ..

Peanut Sauce

3/4 cup coconut milk (6 oz or 180 mls)
4 Tbsp peanut butter (2 oz or 60 mls)
1 Tbsp lemon juice (0.5 oz or 15 mls)
1 Tbsp soy sauce (0.5 oz or 15 mls)
1 tsp brown sugar (5 mls)
1/2 tsp ground cumin (2.5 mls)
1/2 tsp ground coriander (2.5 mls)
1-2 dried red chilies, chopped (keep the seeds for heat)

1. Mix dry ingredients in a small bowl. Add soy sauce and lemon, mix well.
2. Over low heat, combine coconut milk, peanut butter and your soy-lemon-seasoning mix. Mix well, stir often.
3. All you’re doing is melting the peanut butter, so make your peanut sauce after you’ve made everything else in your meal, or make ahead of time and reheat.

Pepper Dip (optional)

4 Tbsp soy sauce (2 oz or 60 mls)
1 Tbsp lemon juice (0.5 oz or 15 mls)
1 tsp brown sugar (5 mls)
1-2 dried red chilies, chopped (keep the seeds for heat)
1 finely chopped green onion (scallion)

Mix well. Serve chilled or room temperature.

Tamarind Dip (optional)

4 Tbsp tamarind paste (helpful link below) (2 oz or 60 mls)
1 Tbsp soy sauce (0.5 oz or 15 mls)
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 finely chopped green onion (scallion)
1 tsp brown or white sugar, or to taste (about 5 mls)

Mix well. Serve chilled or room temperature.

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Huff..puff...puff...

and huffing and puffing, I actually managed to turn out the Voul-au-vent aka puff pastry with filling on the reveal date for Daring Bakers!

The September 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Steph of A Whisk and a Spoon. She chose the French treat, Vols-au-Vent based on the Puff Pastry recipe by Michel Richard from the cookbook Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan.

Puff pastries are those mouth-melting wonders that I never thought I would try to make myself..the Daring Bakers really do challenge us to dare try these previously only wondered about things..

Once I read the instructions and saw the video link provided, I was more confident to tackle this and once I started it did turn out to be pretty straightforward but follow the instruction to T kind of experiment...

For Dough:(I halved the recipe)

1 nd 1/4 cup AP flour

1/2 cup cake flour ( substituted 1/2 cup AP flour + 1 tbsp cornstarch)

salt, as desired

1/2 + cup ice water

Preparation:

Mix the dry ingredients, add ice water and knead the dough. Cover and refrigerate. Beat 2 sticks of butter to form a rectangle 1/4 inch thick. Roll the dough to bigger than the butter rectangle and wrap the butter in it. Turn the dough as seen in the video. Chilling between each stages is highly recommended.

Things went pretty smooth till the dough stage , it was the forming stage that almost undid me.. I couldn't find the round shaped cookie cutters, so I got the flowery kind one..It had those pointed edges , my layering didnt turn out so well...I filled it with mushroom-goat cheese filling and I stop here for now, but I have lot of pastry dough frozen and I shall try with more combinations and update here..

Technically, Im still a daring baker ;)

Off I go to visit our blogroll members, who Im sure have out-done themselves with this challenge !!

Quick nd Pretty

Stats :

• Inspired by Soma, not Roma
• Looks pretty
• Tastes pretty good
• Caveat Lector - didnt think baking added whole lot of value to it, stove top on a nice skillet should work too.

A good friday night movie accompaniment though !

Exotic Gyoza

aka plain old Chinese dumplings/potstickers (gyoza in Japanese)..

This was the Daring cooks challenge for the month of June and my first Daring Kitchen entry ! You are given a challenge on 1st of the month by a member , along with the recipe and you need to keep it a top secret till the release date i.e 14th ! There is a forum for members though where we can share questions, suggestions and also post our trials ..I feel like I belong to those super secret clubs...unravelling mysteries....yeah...delicious culinary mysteries here ;)

Jen asked/ordered us to make Chinese dumplings, alright no biggie...but .....with home made wrappers..that was the real challenge...I have tried dumplings before , but with those wrappers available in super markets and Ive found it a real chore to shape,mould and stick those dry wrappers....but no worries now...I dont need no pre-made wrappers now !! The one in the recipe came out to be so perfect and so easy that I will never, ever get those store brought pale replacements anymore.....

Also, Ive only tried making steamed dumplings before as I try to stay away from deep-frying...but apparently there is a delicious compromise between steaming and deep -frying which makes these amazing pot-stickers ! I fell in love with that name itself..how obvious and how delicious :))

The recipe for 

dough:

1 cup (125g) all-purpose flour

1/2 cup (113g) warm water

flour for worksurface

dipping sauce:

2 parts soy sauce

1 part vinegar (red wine or black)

a few drops of sesame oil

chili garlic paste (optional)

minced ginger (optional)

minced garlic (optional)

minced green onion (optional)

sugar (optional)

Make the dough: In a large bowl mix flour with 1/4 cup of water and stir until water is absorbed. Continue adding water one teaspoon at a time and mixing thoroughly until dough pulls away from sides of bowl. We want a firm dough that is barely sticky to the touch.

To pan fry (potstickers): Place dumplings in a frying pan with 2-3 tbsp of vegetable oil. Heat on high and fry for a few minutes until bottoms are golden. Add 1/2 cup water and cover. Cook until the water has boiled away and then uncover and reduce heat to medium or medium low. Let the dumplings cook for another 2 minutes then remove from heat and serve.

The filling was upto our choice , and I made one with green onions, tofu, carrot , mushroom and another with potatoes which is like the samosa filling. Both turned out to be great and I declare my 1st daring cooks challenge to be a resounding sucess :)