Tag: easysnack

First Time Making, Recipes

Asian honey and butter bread recipe – a simple dessert

This honey and butter bread is quite commonly found in Korean and some other Asian cafes, and doesn’t require any actual bread baking (although it does require a few minutes in the oven). The core ingredients are – yes – honey and butter. The ideal bread to use is milk bread, but you can make it with ordinary sliced bread as well. I’m using half brown and white bread here for an easy and healthier option.

The prep work only takes about 2 minutes, and then it’s a quick 10 minutes in the oven before it’s ready to serve as a dessert or a sweet pick-me-up.

honey_butter_bread

Ingredients
2-3 thick slices of bread
2 tbsps of clear honey
A few slices of unsalted butter
Dash of cinamon
Whipped cream
Chocolate sauce

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Sweet_corn_salted_egg_snack
Recipes

Sweet corn and salted egg yolk – a golden Chinese snack recipe

Happy St Patrick’s day! In celebration this week, here’s a simple sweet corn snack that’d go well with a beer or two. A name for this Chinese snack means “a granary full of golden grains” (jin gu man cang), but it’s much more straightforward than it sounds: these are fried sweet corn kernels topped with salted egg yolks. There’s no need to add any other spices or flavours to it: the natural sweetness of the sweet corn balances perfectly with the salted eggs.

You can keep the egg whites to use in other recipes. For example, they can be mixed with minced pork.

This is very easy to make, and only takes around 10 minutes. The portions below serve two. If you are using frozen sweet corn, then please defrost it beforehand! Also, I’m using whole wheat flour in this version of the recipe, so the colour is a bit darker.

Sweet_corn_salted_egg_snack

Ingredients
1.5-2 cups of sweet corn kernels
3-4 tbsps of plain flour
2 salted egg yolks

You’ll also need some water and plenty of oil for frying.

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tea_flavoured_eggs
Recipes

Tea flavoured eggs recipe (cha ye dan) – a snack from China

Happy 2016! Let’s kick off the new year with a recipe for tea flavoured eggs: a common snack in China, lightly salted and fragranced with black tea. You can either use black tea leaves or tea bags such as these Twining black tea varieties. Assam works quite well and gives the eggs a nice flavour. Please don’t use green tea, as the flavours won’t feel balanced.

I’m using tea bags in this recipe, as I needed to use decaf tea. Otherwise, this is a quite strongly flavoured version of the recipe, as I prefer a stronger taste for the eggs.

Despite the long cooking time for this recipe (around 1 hour then soaking overnight), it’s actually very simple to prepare. The eggs will keep for 3 days if refrigerated, so you can cook a larger batch if you prefer.

tea_flavoured_eggs

Ingredients
4 eggs
3 tea bags
3 star anise
6-7 cloves
2 sprigs of cinnamon (I’m using the Chinese version here)
1 heaped tablespoon of five spices powder
1 tablespoon of soya sauce
Salt to taste Continue reading “Tea flavoured eggs recipe (cha ye dan) – a snack from China”

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bottarga_fennel_sardinianfood
Recipes

Bottarga: the Sardinian Gold

Bottarga (also called bottargo or bottariga…) is a delicacy widely used in the south of the Mediterranean: several cuisines have this fish roe amongst their ingredients, but it is commonly associated with Sardinian cuisine. Hence, it is an indispensable element of my cooking.
bottarga_sardinian
The preparation of this magical ingredient is rather simple: the fish roe is usually taken from grey mullet or tuna, and it is left to dry in salt after being pressed into an oblong shape. This is then coated in beeswax for preservation purposes. It has a very strong fishy flavour, which is a real speciality to be used for antipasti like in this marvellous cabbage and pine nuts dish (photo below) or as an addition to fish based pasta (like a parmigiano of the sea).

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