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Milk Jam

Milk jam is something I became aware of from a little shop in Ubud, Bali. I have never heard or even know of its existence until I stumbled upon Kou. Kou is a shop in Ubud that sells handmade soaps and jams – owned by a Japanese lady who married to Balinese man. The fact is Kou also inspired me to start making my own soap bars, which I still find satisfaction in doing so today. Anyway, one morning many years later I suddenly woke up with much curiosity of milk jam. So of course the first sensible step is look it up on Google 🙂

Milk jam search came up with so many results, but I think I like this one best. I have tried making the vanilla and earl grey tea versions, both are delicious. As you can see from the recipe below, you could play with so many flavours to add to the base recipe. I think it will taste lovely with matcha flavour, or pandan, I shall try these in next time 🙂 And also due to how slim that ingredients list, I’d suggest to use good quality vanilla extract, earl grey or any other additions so these flavours will really carry through the cooking time.

 

Base Milk Jam
  • 200 ml thickened cream
  • 250 ml milk (I used light milk as that was we have in the fridge and it turned out fine)
  • 80 grams sugar (I used 70 grams)

 

Vanilla Flavour – add to base recipe
  • half vanilla pod

 

Early Grey Tea Flavour – steep for about 5 minutes then add to base recipe
  • 20 grams earl grey tea leaves
  • 80 ml hot water

 

Combine everything in a pot and cook with low heat.

Stir with a wooden spoon frequently to avoid any burned milk on the bottom of the pan. Especially when the mixture is started to reach boiling point and thicken up (took me about 20 minutes for half batch), you will need to keep stirring continuously. Fear not, once it reached that stage, it is almost done anyway.

Once it’s texture is similar to soft caramel, transfer to a glass jar and as it cools down, it will thicken up even more.

Above pictures are taken when I made the earl grey flavour. Do you notice the colour changes? It will even more noticeable on the vanilla or plain version

 

Yummy with toast, crackers, even on ice cream. Apparently it stays soft even on top of the cold ice cream (according to the source blog)

 

 

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Meet Fresh, Eastwood

Meet our current Taiwanese style dessert, Meet Fresh 🙂 Meet Fresh is the Taiwanese dessert chain that started in Sydney five or six years back (or actually, it might be longer than that). I knew it was popular for their taro and sweet potato balls in bowl of thin sugary syrup. Then it offered the icy shaved ice desserts which also attracted lots of interest. We used to love their mango shaved ice dessert – so refreshing during summer time. And it comes in a huge bowl, make it perfect for sharing 🙂

Unfortunately along the way, we thought the mango dessert was not as tasty as we first tried it. I think they have used frozen mango pieces instead and it was just bland, lack of flavour and fragrant as fresh mangoes. I understand that mangoes are seasonal and therefore they need to have backup plan using those frozen ones. It is just a shame, as they should have just offered the mango dessert during summer time only, which is the time where mangoes are in season.

Ah well, enough of the rant. Since we haven’t been back to Meet Fresh for such a long time, we though why don’t we try out something else for a change. It did not disappoint, we fell in love again! These were taken at Eastwood store, but being franchise chain I am sure they would somehow follow the same standard in every shop.

Our favourite: Signature Herbal Jelly
Surprisingly tasted good as well: Waffle with vanilla ice cream and banana

Without doubt, we ‘d come back for the Signature Herbal Jelly menu. When we first ordered this, we asked it for a cold version but without ice. I guess as winter is coming, the hot version would be a nice option. Love the herbal jelly, it is very tasty and fragrant, just like the herbal jelly topping at Gong Cha. The waffle was not bad at all, crispy on the outside and fluffy inside – served with ice cream, sliced banana and chopped walnuts.

 

Meet Fresh

175 Rowe St, Eastwood NSW 2122

Phone: (02) 8339 1031

meetfresh.net

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Indonesian Cheesecake and Choco Ball

Here is another post on Indonesian Cheesecake. I used the same base cake recipe as in this post. But this time, I made cream cheese whipped cream for the filling and also to cover the cake.

The recipe is taken from here with slight adjustment, and below is my version:

Cream Cheese Filling:

  • 150 ml thicken cream, cold
  • 50 grams of cream cheese at room temperature
  • 30 grams of grated cheddar cheese
  • 1 tablespoon of sugar

Mix the thickened cream with sugar until almost become whipped cream.

Add in the cream cheese and continue mix with high speed until stiff.

Fold in the grated cheddar cheese to the cream cheese whipped cream.

Set aside in the fridge, covered with cling wrap.

Simple Syrup:

  • 50 grams sugar
  • 150 ml  water
  • 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Bring everything to boil in a small pot, make sure all the sugar has been dissolved well.

Set aside to cool to room temperature.

White Chocolate Ganache: (I skipped this)

  • 100 ml thickened cream
  • 250 grams cooking white chocolate, melted and cool down to room temperature

Mix the thickened cream to whipped cream, add in melted white chocolate. Mix well until the texture is soft-cream-alike.

Assembly:

Once the cake is cool down, trim the side and the surface of the cake to make it level. The cut it horizontally into two or three layers. (I halved mine). Keep the trimmed pieces aside for choco balls.

Brush the surface of each half with simple syrup. Then coat it with generous amount of cream cheese filling.

Put the other half on top of the base and repeat the process again.

Cover all sides with the remaining cream cheese filling (or white chocolate ganache if you made this)

Then cover the whole cake with more cheddar cheese.

I find it difficult to stick the sides of the cake with grated cheddar… Probably waste more cheese here than what actually stick to the cake 😛

Since we have some trimmed pieces of the cake and  I do not want to waste those, I thought why not make them into something more exciting hence the choco balls. There is no fixed measurement, just approximate.

Choco Balls:

Crumble the trimmed pieces of the cake into a bowl.

Add in about two tablespoons of cream cheese at room temperature and mix well.

Then add about three tablespoons of sweetened condensed milk in chocolate flavour.

Mix until everything is combined well. The texture should resemble cookie dough, a little bit on the dryer side.

Shape into bite-sized balls, roll in chocolate rices or dip into melted chocolate – enjoy!

I only rolled them to chocolate rices here, would be better looking had I dipped them in melted chocolate 🙂 But regardless of their appearance here, they actually tasted good and not overly sweet.
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Fried Chicken with Salted Egg

Fried chicken is always good, right? Does not matter what we paired it with, most of the times it will turn to be a yummy dish. Growing up, I do not recall mom ever cooked salted eggs any other ways and we had them steamed in whole egg and eat it with plain rice. My favorite always has been the salty egg yolk, full of flavour and creamy – what about yours?

Some time ago we had dinner at this Shanghainese restaurant and my friend ordered deep fried tofu with salted egg. And that dish blew my mind away! Despite how simple it sounds, it turned out to very tasty. Crispy tofu which are quite bland marries really well with the salted egg yolk sauce, with hint of garlic, pepper, and chilli. Ever since that night, we have always ordered that dish whenever back to the restaurant.

Now, moving forward to the fried chicken version. After seeing people sharing the recipes on Facebook, I was tempted to give it a try. If it already blew our minds when paired with fried tofu, I’d imagine it would be delicious if not better with fried chicken, right? Do bear in mind, this dish packs a lot of calories so serve this for special occasions only, ok? Anyway, here is my attempt on fried chicken with salted egg.

Fried chicken:
  • I am using this recipe and used about 700 grams of chicken breast fillet (best to use chicken thigh fillet for more succulent texture) – cut into bite size pieces.
Could totally eat these by themselves ♥
Salted egg yolk sauce:
  • 4 cooked salted egg yolks, mashed
  • 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter
  • 1 tablespoon of olive oil
  • 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
  • 3 bird eye chilli, finely sliced (adjust amount to your liking)
  • 2 tablespoons of evaporated milk (substitute with plain milk, but will be less creamy)
  • handful of curry leaves
  • salt and pepper to taste

Firstly heat butter and oil in a pan on medium heat, then add in the finely chopped garlic and chilli.

Cook quickly until fragrant, then add the curry leaves. Pan fry until they are crisp and fragrant.

Then add the mashed salted egg yolks, cook until it is foamy and bubbly.

Turn off the heat, add the evaporated milk, pinch of salt and pepper to taste.

Toss the fried chicken pieces back in the pan until well coated with the sauce.

And there you have it, enjoy with steamy hot rice.

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Subway Choc Chip Cookies

One thing that always appeals to me at Subway (the sandwich/roll chain) is their cookies. They are chewy and soft in the center and such a comfort food, isn’t it? Surely it is not something you would indulge on daily basis if health and budget are of your concerns 🙂 Anyway, if you like the kind of chewy and soft textured cookies then continue read on – and maybe give it a try and let me know if you also love it as much as we do.

In the case you want to try make it at home, then at least it is much budget friendly than store bought, but try not to eat too many in a day, ok? I did a research and tried out few recipes, so far we like this one. I am not even sure where I got this recipe, I wrote this down on my recipe book years ago and forgot about it. Only recently I flipped the pages of my recipe book, noticed the recipe and decided to make it again. So, I am truly sorry to the owner of this recipe for not citing you – but thank you for sharing it!

  • 250 grams self-rising flour, sifted
  • 170 grams melted butter
  • 185 grams brown sugar
  • 110 grams white sugar (I used 80 grams, as milk choc chips are already quite sweet)
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 whole egg
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 2 cups of dark choc chips (I used milk choc chips as that was what I have at home at the time of baking)

Cream together melted butter, brown sugar and white sugar until well blended.

Beat in egg, egg yolk and vanilla extract until the batter is light and creamy.

Mix in sifted flour until just blended.

Lastly, stir in the choc chips.

Drop big tablespoons of the dough on lined baking trays.

Bake on 165C for 15-17 minutes.

Some tips:

– Use good quality of choc chips to get better taste cookies. Or could substitute the choc chips with M&Ms or Smarties, to your liking.

– Do not overbake the cookies to get that soft centered texture. I took out mine at 15 minutes and they were soft to touch. Once cooled to room temperature, they will harden up and the center will be chewy and soft.

– The brown sugar is mostly what creates that chewy soft texture, hence you cannot substitute this with white sugar. For the same reason, if you need to cut down on sweetness level, just reduce the white sugar amount only.