Popular Bakery - A Taste of Portuguese Culture

Couple days ago, we were craving for Portuguese flame grilled chicken. There is one particular restaurant here in Edmonton that serve this kind of grilled chicken. So that morning we went there empty stomached-did not have any breakfast, only the kids had their milk and some cheerios. We got there at around 11am, unfortunately the kitchen starts to serve at 12 o'clock. O well..we did not want to wait for an hour, since we were hungry enough. Thus I just check out the bakery, yes it is a combo-resto and bakery. All they have there look so tempting and yummy. Chris and the kids were back to our car, and there I was all by myself choosing the ones I wanted. So here is what I got, I mean the ones I managed to bring home and took the picture (not included the ones we ate in our car).

Let's start from the far left (going clock-wise)..I do not know what it is called. But my husband loves it, he finished two at time. It's just like sugar sprinkled-fried sweet dough. Next is sweet pastry..Jordan and I love it...it's similar to Genji pie. Next with the paper cup is coux pastry with strawberry jam and cream filling. I may have to skip buying this next time. The skin was too dry for me. Bianca just licked the strawberry jam and then put it upside down on the table...I don't think she likes it either. Next is empanada with cumin spiced-cubes chicken filling. It is similar to kue panada in Manado-Celebes island. Smart to think that Celebes island once was colonized by Portuguese. Thus the food is interfered by Portuguese.
Alright, next is the famous egg tart. I love it love it love it!!! Happy that I bought some of them. The taste was so creamy and I just can go ehmm...oh yes, and Jordan loves it too..
The last one was Bianca's favorites, apple pie. The apple gives some fragrant to it.
To conclude, I would recommend you to try this bakery/eatery if you happen to visit Edmonton. As for us, we will definitely go back there for the chicken and some more pastries!

Popular Bakery
9307 118 Ave,
Edmonton, Alberta
T5G 0N3

Rice Flour Steamed Cupcake (Kue Mangkok)

I feel like I should post this recipe, since a good friend of mine searched for it and she was not able to find it here. The pictures have been sitting on my file for ages. So..this time I would love to share two steps-recipe. The first one is making fermented cassava which has alcoholic flavor, and next we'll use it as a key ingredient for the cupcakes. Let's start!

FERMENTED CASSAVA (TAPE SINGKONG)

Ingredients:
- 500g of cassava, peel and cut as preferred
- 2-3 tablet of "tape" culture (this is yeast which specially used for this fermentation), crush until powdery

Directions:
Steam cassava until cooked, app. 30minutes. Take it out of the steamer and let it cool and dry. Place it in a container (with a lid), then sprinkle the culture powder on it evenly. Do it until all the cassava covered with the white powder of yeast. Put the lid on and store it in a warm room. Wait for 2-3 days and check for the alcoholic smell. The longer we store, the more alcoholic the product is. The taste should be combination of sweet, sour and alcoholic. It can be consumed directly or used as an ingredient for cake or other snack.


RICE FLOUR STEAMED CUPCAKE (KUE MANGKOK)

Kue mangkok literally means bowl cake. It is called this way since small bowl is used as mould and the shape of the cake is yet bowl-liked. Fermented cassava is used as one of the key ingredients here and it gives sweet, sour and a little alcoholic flavor. Some recipes may use yeast only and do not put the fermented cassava. However, I prefer to put this fermented cassava, as it gives delicious flavor.

Source: NCC
Ingredients:
A: 125g fermented cassava
175g granulated sugar or grated palm sugar or combination of the two
mix it well

B: 200g rice flour
200ml cool water
mix it well and keep it aside

C: 150ml water
75g granulated sugar
boil until all sugar dissolved

D: 100g all purpose flour
150ml soda drink
1tsp baking powder
food coloring paste

Directions:
Place the boiled C in a mixing bowl and then add all purpose flour little by little while mixing it with a wooden spoon. In another mixing bowl, mix and knead A and B until it does not stick. Add the mixed all purpose flour and keep mixing it. Add baking powder and mix it well. Pour the soda drink little by little while mixing it. Shift the batter and then divide into 2 and add food coloring to each of the portion. Preheat the mould by placing it inside the steamer. Pour the batter into the mould app. 3/4 of height. Steam for 20minutes.

Chicken Soup ala Wedding Reception (Sup Pengantin)

There are various kinds of soup and we can find soup almost in any cultures or nations. One of many soups I remember dearly is the one which usually served during wedding reception in Indonesia. Since this kind of soup is identical to a wedding reception, it is called Sup Pengantin, literally means Bride Soup. It has many kind of ingredients, including meats and veggies and the taste is so refreshing. I would like to share this recipe to all my Indonesian foodie blogger in the event of Masbar February 2010 edition.

Ingredients:
- 3 whole chicken leg, cooked and cut the meat in cubes. Keep the broth aside
- 4 carrots, peeled and cut
- 3 potato, peeled and cut
- bunch of cauliflower, separate the florets
- bunch of snow peas, discard the hard parts
- 3 stalk of celery, cut
- 1 can of button mushroom or other mushroom as preferred
- 1 can of quail eggs
- 1/2 can of luncheon meat or chicken wiener, cut
- some cooked macaroni pasta as preferred
- 1/2 onion, chopped
- 6 cloves of shallot, chopped
- 1 Tbsp of margarine for sauteing
- water
- salt
- sugar
- ground white pepper
- ground nutmeg

Directions:

Put the broth in a pot and boil. Once it is boiling, add potato, carrot, mushroom, cooked chicken meat, and quail eggs consecutively. Meanwhile, saute chopped onion and shallot with margarine in a pan until fragrant and add luncheon meat or chicken wiener and continue to saute for 3minutes. Transfer all at once into the chicken broth in the pot. Add pepper, nutmeg, salt and sugar. Adjust the taste. Then saute cauliflower, celery and snow peas in a pan for 2-3minutes. Transfer it into a serving bowl to keep the crunchiness.
To serve: put some cauliflower, celery and snow peas in a bowl. Pour the chicken broth and soup over. Sprinkle some fried shallot.

Valentine's Cake - My Very First Cake Deco

This year we did not do much for celebrating Valentine's Day due to our busy schedule. Not that we usually made it big no, well..at least we always had some fancy dinner on that day. My husband is attending school again and he had exam after the long weekend. Thus I only baked some cakes and for the first time ever, I decorated them using chocolate ganache, cream cheese frosting and some colourful sprinkles. Bianca loves the chocolate and sprinkles while Jordan loves the cake, so they share it. Still need a lot of practice and learn. So here is the cake recipe to share with you my beloved readers.

Strawberry Sponge Cake

Ingredients: (good for 1 medium size heart shape pan and 6 mini cupcake)
- 10 egg yolk
- 6 egg white
- 180g granulated sugar
- 200g all purpose flour
- 120gr soft margarine
- 1Tbsp of ovalette
- 1tsp of baking powder
- 4Tbsp of coconut milk
- 1tsp of strawberry paste
- 1tsp of vanilla essence

For decoration:
- chocolate ganache
- cream cheese frosting
- sprinkles

Directions:
Using a mixer, mix eggs, sugar and ovalette at medium high speed until fluffy and reaching good overrun. Add vanilla essence. Lower the speed of the mixer and add the flour and baking powder gradually. Add coconut milk and strawberry paste and continue to stir at low speed. Add soft margarine and stir it well. Preheat the oven at 370F. Pour the batter into a heart shape baking pan which was previously layered with margarine and flour, and pour the rest into a mini cupcake heart shape mould. Bake for 25-30minutes. Let it cool off.
Once it is cool enough, take it out of the pan, then pour the chocolate ganache over until all surface is covered. Keep it in a fridge until the ganache harden. Take it out and decorate it with some cream cheese frosting using cake decorating tips as preferred. At last add some sprinkles on the mini cupcakes.

MASBAR FEBRUARY EDITION - VARIOUS SOUPs

Hello darling...

Since this is a month of love and caring, we would like to greet you all with an intimate hello. This month whilst we celebrated Valentine's Day, normally we are spoiled with so many sweet dishes, especially with chocolate as an ingredient. However, Masbar theme for this month is not related to chocolate. Instead we chose to share recipes of VARIOUS SOUPS. Soup is commonly served in a family where we can share loves, and it is a way to express our loves and caring to our family. We believe that you all are familiar to many kinds of soup. Mainly, soups can be classified into two groups, clear soups and thick soups. Soup can be found in any cultures and areas and gives specific character to its nation/ethnic. Soup is also acceptable for all ages groups. So, let's choose what kind of soup you would like to serve and share in our Masbar home.

As usual, these are the rules:

• You have to post your soup during the last week of Februari (Feb 21 until 27 '2010)
• It should be posted with Masbar Logo
• Send your data to masakbarengyuuk[at]gmail[dot]com, which includes:

1. Name
2. Blog Name
3. The Dish's Name and its URL
4. one picture of the dish
5. A description of the dish

Note:
There is no rule nor limitation upon recipes. Feel free to browse around or make up your own dish as preferred. However, please quote the source. You may use English or Indonesian as you like.

Menu theme, polling and schedule for next month will be announced after Round-Up posting. Stay tune for the updates and let's cook together!

Kue Pukis - One of Many Indonesian Street Vendor Snacks

Masbar event comes again this month with a very interesting theme: Food ala Street Vendor (Panganan Kaki Lima-Indonesian ). There are gazillion street vendor foods in Indonesia. They sell various items of food and open during different time of the day. And since I am living overseas, I have been missing some of those foods. Normally I try to prepare it myself with limited ingredients that I have in my kitchen. And they have been satisfied my feeling of missing home. This time I would like to share one of the street vendor snacks, called Kue Pukis. It is said that Kue Pukis is a modification of wafel (source: wikipedia).

Ingredients:
350g all purpose flour
150g corn starch
250g granulated sugar
500ml warm coconut milk
5 eggs
11g instant yeast
3Tbsp melted margarine
a pinch of salt
1sdt vanilla extract
Topping: chocolate sprinkles, raisin, cheese, peanuts

Directions:
Mix the eggs and sugar with a mixer at high speed until white and fluffy. Meanwhile mix the dry ingredients (flour, corn starch and yeast) in another bowl. Then add the coconut milk into the dry ingredients little by little and well mix it. Add the egg mixture into it little by little and continue to mix it. Add melted margarine and vanilla extract and mix it well again. Keep it aside and let it arise until the volume is twice as much as initial. Heat the moulding up on the stove. Pour the batter in it, fill it up until 3/4 of the hole. Put the lid on and cook it under medium heat for 2minutes. Open the lid and top it up with chocolate sprinkles or raisin or cheese or peanuts as preferred. Put the lid back and continue to cook until done (golden brown).

Recipe's source: Ine Elkaje