Lemon Sponge Cake with Lemon Sorbet, Lemon and Ginger Crumb, Lemon Curd, Candied Lemon
Here is my latest creation, the one I made for Mum on Mother’s Day. Te recipe is adapted from components from the Cumulus Inc and Burch & Purchese Cookbooks with some inspiration from Sydney Chef Dan Hong (when he went on Masterchef).
Lemon Zest Sponge Cake
1 egg
75g caster sugar (Roughly 2 shot glasses)
Zest of 1 lemon, grated
65g plain flour
10g baking powder
50mL milk
1. Heat up the oven to 175C (350F).
2. Line a loaf baking tin with baking paper and gently spray it with canola oil.
3. Toss the egg, sugar and grated lemon zest into a bowl and mix with an electric mixer for 10 minutes until the mixture is thick.
4. Sift the flour and baking powder into the egg mixture. Fold.
5. Pour the mixture into the baking tin, and toss the bloody tin into the bloody oven and bake for 12 to 15 minutes.
6. Whip out a skewer and stab the cake. Skewer clean? Then it’s finished baby!
7. Remove the tin from the oven and coooool the cake. Then remove cake from tin.
Lemon Crumb
125g plain flour
A 50c piece flake of fresh ginger grated
Grated lemon zest from one lemon
125g rolled oats
185g butter
165g brown sugar
1. Heat oven to 170C/325F.
2. Sift flour, add sugar, oats, ginger, zest and butter.
3. Mix evenly using your hands until a dough is formed.
4. Grab two sheets of baking paper and roll the dough between the baking paper.
5. Place dough (still between baking paper) onto tray. Remove top sheet of baking paper and throw tray into the oven.
6. Bake for 20 minutes… or until it’s golden brown baby!
7. Remove from oven, and break up either using a food processor or if you have tight Asian parents like me, a mortar and pestle.
Lemon Curd
Juice of half a lemon
Zest of half a lemon grated
2 Eggs
4 teaspoons if sugar.
A piece of butter the size of half a brussel sprout
1. Grab a saucepan of water and bring it to a simmer on medium heat.
2. Get a ceramic or stainless steel bowl and sit its ceramic or stainless steel arse on the saucepan.
3. Put the eggs, zest and sugar into the bowl and start whisking.
4. Whisk and whisk and whisk then gradually add in the lemon juice a teaspoon at a time. Eventually the curd will thicken. If it doesn’t thicken, increase the heat. And whisk until the right consistency you desire.
5. Turn off heat, whisk in butter and allow to cool.
Candied Lemon
Zest of one lemon, sliced into thin strands.
250g sugar
Water for the purposes of blanching
250g water
1. Gently blanche the zest in a saucepan for one minute then drain and remove.
2. Pour in 250g water and tr sugar unti a saucepan and boil on medium heat and dissolve the sugar. Add the zest to the saucepan and reduce the heat to a low setting and cook for 20 minutes.
3. Remove the zest and cool.
Lemon Sorbet
Usually I make lemon granita from scratch, but in this dish I felt Sorbet was a better option. Having no ice cream machine at home, I opted for Weis Lemon Sorbet. Hahaha.
Plating up
1. Pour in the lemon and ginger crumb into a glass.
2. Cut a piece of lemon sponge cake and place into the glass on top of the crumb.
3. Pour in a tablespoon of the lemon curd onto the cake.
4. Sprinkle on some more crumb.
5. Quenelle a ball of lemon sorbet and place on top of the crumb and cake and curd.
6. Garnish with candied lemon.
7. Dig in and enjoy!
Hope you all had a wonderful Mother’s Day! 
Mr Tulk… visit #7 or #8?
328 Swanston St, Melbourne
Like I said in my previous post on Hobba, working in Docklands has quite a lot of disadvantages in terms of food options. The food is a joke! The with the exception of two or three gems, the rest are all the usual American Fast Food Franchises, or just absolutely mediocre.
Some days I get out of bed, and rather than woofing down a hot bowl of porridge with honey or a breakfast cereal of Weetbix and milk, I crave eggs and/or bacon/sausage/mushrooms…
And the only convenient option (at the time, as Cumulus Inc no longer is an option on weekdays as my organisation decided to pack up and leave Spring St for Docklands), was Mr Tulk. I could just get off at Melbourne Central, polish off the food, and then tram it to work (since then, I’ve found out that Daisy & I-Hua have discovered new breakfast/brunch places closer to my Docklands office – the King St and William St side of the city – Hooray!)
About a month and a half ago, I went back to school at Melbourne Uni for my last ever semester of classes and just had a craving for poached eggs…
… so, I headed for the Melbourne Uni/RMIT student hangout that was Mr Tulk, a cafe attached to the side of the State Library of Victoria (enter from Latrobe St).
And I ordered this…
Corned Beef Hash with Poached Eggs and Sauteed Mushrooms… oh baby yeah!
The Corned Beef Hash was a tad salty, with a hint of spicy peppery flavour coming from the corned beef and potato. The poached eggs were cooked perfectly, oozing out like a *refrains from saying something dirty*… er, lava from a volcano and the mushrooms were, oh-so fantastic. A combination of acidity, creamy saltiness, subtle bitterness coming from white wine(?), olive oil and butter…
Oh man, writing about this right now at 8:45pm is giving me cravings!
Feeling like a trip to Mr Tulk again tomorrow morning!!!
Ah I forgot, here’s the shot of the eggs… some egg-porn for you!
And washed down with a cup of coffee…
Ah geez, craving poached eggs and mushrooms right now, can’t stop thinking about it!!!!! Time to zzzzz, goodnight people!!!
Hobba
428 Malvern Rd Prahran
Sorry for not posting folks, but hey, I’m back after what was hopefully my final ever exam.
Let’s get stuck into proceedings now shall we?
My younger brother works at the Alfred Hospital, and usually goes to Dukes Coffee Roasters or Hobba for breakfast/brunch (the lucky kid). So straight after my exam, I went on an eating spree – one of the places he recommended was Hobba for its 63 degree slow poached eggs.
Me? I’m a meat-addict. No meat no happy!
Hobba is pretty casual and relaxed, the interior looks as though it were once a warehouse or even a Car Mechanic’s workshop, converted into a Cafe that still had the features of a car garage.
Me being a meat-happy-nutjob, ordered the Hobba breakfast, consisting of mushroom, roasted tomato, Cumberland Sausage, Bacon and Eggs and Chutney.
Oh baby, so meaty, so juicy, so fatty and salty. Just the carnivorous way I like it!
Oh look at that plate of smokey, searing hot, salty, porky, gooey goodness. A-meatlover’s animal flesh-lusting dream!!!
The 63 degree slow poached eggs mm mmm!!! Much much more gooey and runnier than a standard poached egg you get anywhere else in Melbourne!!!
The eggs were lovely, although the one you see above (the egg on the right) was a tad overcooked, whilst the one on the left truly oozed and flowed its yolk out like lava out of a volcano…
Mmmmm coffeeeeeeee!!!
Everytime I go out to breakfast these days – I gotta have at least two of these three ingredients -
poached eggs, pork in the form of bacon or sausage and nice and fatty and browned (NOT OVERLY CHARRED) and sauteed mushrooms. Heaven!
I don’t do breakfast too often though, as Docklands near my work is an absolute disaster when it comes nice cafes – more likely to find them in North Melbourne, Fitzroy, Carlton, South Yarra, Prahran aaaaargh. And secondly, as much as I love my bacon and sausages for brekky, gotta watch the cholesterol!!!
Until next time folks!!
Bang Mi baby! Oops, I meant BANH MI (Pork Belly)
Alrighty people, again, apologies for the total lack of posts in I-can’t-remember-how-many-weeks.
Two more weeks, 13 more days and I will be a free man again once my final exam in this course is over – hopefully never have to study again (don’t jinx yourself D).
Which brings us to my final post for at least 3 weeks.
Last week I had Banh Mi for dinner. To be precise, Pork Belly Banh Mi.
I don’t order Banh Mi (the Vietnamese equivalent of a Subway Sandwich – sorry, surely there’s a better way to describe Banh Mi) in Springvale or in the other Melbourne Vietnamese enclaves of Richmond, or Footscray (rarely ever in Footscray as it’s on the other side of town) anymore. Basically in the mid-1990s, parts of my extended family – Uncles and some cousins went out with us on a roadtrip, and brought Banh Mi thinking it’d be cheaper than grabbing Maccas on the way to Healesville. Boy were they wrong, they got struck down by salmonella poisoning after grabbing some Banh Mi Baguettes from Springvale!
Anyway, they’ve recovered…
What is Banh Mi? It’s a baguette – filled with pork liver pate, pork belly, headcheese (google it) cilantro coriander, spring onion, picked carrots and fresh cucumber slices and a smearing of so-called egg mayonnaise.
Hungry yet?
Here’s the recipe (the home-made one anyway).
Recipe
1 carrot – shredded into long thin needle-like threads
A couple sprigs of cilantro coriander (wash and chop its ass off).
2 egg yolks (do whatever you want with the whites – scramble or make meringues)
600g of boneless pork belly
Two spring onion stalks (washed and asses hacked off – the bits that have the roots and usually covered in dirt).
1 cup of vinegar
4 teaspoons of sugar
2 teaspoons of salt
2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
2 small garlic clove
1 teaspoon of Five Spice Powder (available at Asian Grocers)
5 French Baguettes (available from Vietnamese Bakeries)
1. Wash and shred the carrot. Grab a saucepan, pour in the vinegar and half a cup of water. Bring to a gentle boil, then reduce to a simmer. Add the sugar and dissolve. Turn off the stove and allow to cool for about half an hour. Then add the shredded carrot and allow the carrot to infuse for half an hour. Drain.
2. Wash the pork belly, pat it dry. Then using your hands massage a teaspoon of salt, a diced garlic clove and the Five Spice Powder evenly all over the pork belly like a perverted client at some Thai Massage Parlour.
3. Wrap the pork belly up in a big bowl or plate with Gladwrap/Clingwrap and allow to marinate for 1 hour.
4. Turn on the stove and pop on a steamer pot or pan – or anything you use to steam – on high heat, pop in the pork belly. Oops, forgot to add, REMOVE the clingwrap hahahaha. Steam on high heat for 25 minutes, then reduce heat to medium and steam for a further 20 – 25 minutes. Remove, cool and slice thinly.
5. Heat up the oil in a sauce pan and toss in a diced garlic clove and a pinch of salt and sear quickly until light golden brown. Then turn off the stove.
6. Break open a couple of eggs, removing and discarding the whites.
7. Grab a teaspoon and using a teaspoon at a time place droplets of the oil, seared garlic and salt mixture into the eggyolks and whisk until thick – like lemon curd…
8. Wash and dry the spring onion and cilantro coriander.
9. Grab the baguettes and cut then through the middle. Heat up an oven to 250F and quickly toast the baguettes for 5 minutes. Then turn off the oven.
10. Remove the baguettes and start putting them together by smearing on the Egg Yolk Mayonnaise. Then pop on slices of pork belly, some pickled carrots, sliced cucumber, the cilantro coriander and spring onion stalks.
There you go, enjoy! Until next month folks!!!
Uncle Ronnie & Aunty Emily: Strawberry Snow, Strawberries, Strawberry Jelly, Coconut Caviar
Hey everyone, sorry for not blogging enough.
Like I said earlier, I’m going to be pretty quiet for at least the next 5 weeks until after my final ever exam before I start blogging on a regular basis again zzzzzzzz…
Anyway, here’s a recipe of mine – a dish I made just over a month ago which was inspired by a picture I saw on Instagram, taken by one of Daisy’s friends.
Daisy’s friend, who also happens to be a pastry chef at one of Melbourne’s well reputed restaurants had a meal at Cumulus Inc and ordered the Strawberry Granita, Coconut Sorbet and Strawberry Jelly dessert and took a happy snap of it as soon as it arrived at his table.
Seeing that he uploaded such a pretty picture onto Instagram I thought, “That looks good, let’s do a home version!”
Ingredients
Strawberry Snow: 2/3 a punnet of Strawberries, 4 teaspoons of sugar, juice of half a lemon, a thumb-sized flake of lemon zest, a cup of water.
Coconut Caviar: 150mL of Coconut Milk, 3 teaspoons of sugar, 1 cup of tapioca pearls, 1/4 of a vanilla bean.
Macerated Strawberries: 1/3 punnet of Strawberries, 3 teaspoons of sugar
Strawberry Jelly: 1 pack of Aeroplane Jelly (Strawberry Flavour) , 250 mL of boiling water, 200mL of cold water (added once the Strawberry Jelly crystals are completely dissolved in the boiling water).
1. To make the Strawberry Snow… Wash the strawberries, chop the heads of the strawberries off (you know, the bits with the green leafy parts sticking out of them). Wash them again.
2. Bring the cup of water to a boil, toss in the sugar, the zest and lemon juice.
3. Chuck the Strawberries into a blender. Allow the mixture of water, sugar, zest and lemon juice to cool, then remove the zest. Pour the mixture into the blender with the strawberries then, whip, blend and purify.
4. Pour the Strawberry puree into a bowl through a sieve/strainer, filtering out the little sesame-seed like specks.
5. Allow the puree to cool, then pour into cups…
Toss the cups in the freezer. And on the hour, grab a fork and scrape the puree while it freezes to make it flakey.
6. Allow the puree to freeze for at least 6 hours (or overnight to be safe).
7. To make the jelly, bring 250mL of water to boil, pour the water into a bowl of jelly crystals and dissolve. Once dissolved, pour in the cold water and allow the jelly mixture to cool. Then pour into cups and place in the fridge and allow the jelly to set.
8. To make the Coconut Caviar, boil two cups of water in a saucepan. One the water is bubbling aggressively, toss in the tapioca pearls and boil for 5 minutes. Then reduce to a simmer for 3 minutes then drain…
9. In a separate saucepan, bring some coconut milk to a light boil, add the sugar and vanilla bean and simmer gently for 5 minutes. Add the tapioca pearls and simmer for another 2 minutes. Mix evenly and turn off the stoce so that it cools.
10. Wash the remaining strawberries, and chop off their green leafy asses. Wash and rinse again, and dice the strawberries. Grab the sugar and using your fingers mas… cerate the strawberries hahahahahaha. Allow the strawberries to mascerate for about half an hour.
11. Plate up! Pop in the Jelly first into a glass or bowl…
12. Put in three spoonfuls of the cooled coconut caviar on top of the jelly.
13. Place the macerated strawberries onto the coconut caviar…
14. Grab the strawberry snow, grab a fork and start forking! By that I mean scrape the snow a bit. Then place a pile of strawberry snow into the glass/bowl…
15. Here’s the finished product!
Beautiful, isn’t it???
Just like marriage – I gave it a name, “Uncle Ronnie & Aunty Emily”, in honour of my friend Ronnie who is now happily married to his wife Emily!
Anyway, one more post in me folks, just before my assignment and then final exam begins!
Until next time!
Bok Choy and Moss and Dried Scallops and Dried Mushrooms
Hi people, sorry for the lack of posts – work’s just gone nuts.
I won’t really be able to blog as much anymore, especially until at least after the middle of April (my final exam ever hooray). Until that’s over, not much hanging around the kitchen either, except to help Mum and Dad out.
Anyway, here’s a dish I made during Chinese New Year, how’s everyone’s New Year so far by the way??
Bok Choy and Moss and Dried Scallops and Dried Mushrooms…
Ingredients
1 bunch of bokchoy – washed, and chop it’s arse end off
6 dried scallops
1 pack of black moss (known as Nostoc Flagelliforme)
8 dried mushrooms
1.5 cups of chicken stock
1 pinch of salt
1 teaspoon of sugar
2 tablespoons of light sauce
1 teaspoon of cornstarch
1 teaspoon of oyster sauce
1 garlic clove diced
1 flake of ginger
1. Rinse and soak the mushrooms, dried scallops and black moss in separate bowls of water for two hours like so…
2. Rinse the bokchoy, chop its dirty arse end off and wash it thoroughly in water so that it’s free of dirt and little tiny insects and s***.
3. Drain the moss and mushrooms. However keep the brine from the bowl of dried scallops as it will be used in the cooking process.
4. In a large frying pan heat up a tablespoon of oil. On high heat, add the diced garlic and flake of ginger and then toss in the bokchoy and stirfry for about 90 seconds to 2 minutes.
5. Remove the bokchoy and place in a separate bowl.
6. Pour in the stock and bring to a boil. Add the dried scallops with brine, moss, and dried mushrooms and simmer for 5 to 7 minutes.
7. Bring the stock with mushrooms, moss, scallops back to a boil and stir in the oyster sauce, light soy sauce and cornstarch.
8. Add the bokchoy and cook for another minute. Turn off the stove and then serve…
Hope you enjoy it!
I’m gonna pop up a few more dessert recipes, and go back to making stuff I love to have with beer, wine and sake… Deep Fried School Prawns baby!!
Pulled Pork and Dried Scallop Congee
It’s been about three weeks since my last post I think?
I went to a friend’s buck’s night and his wedding, and sort of left blogging for Instagram for a bit.
But I’m back now haha. The last 7 days hasn’t exactly been fun – back to work, which is fine as I’d finished something before schedule. It was more working with niggling hayfever and a blast of smoke from the Gippsland bushfires from the last two weeks.
I went to bed last Sunday night feeling perfect, then woke up, brushed, cleaned up, had breakfast and sped off to work. Melbourne was covered in a smokey haze. And by the time I set foot in the office, I got all sneezy and runny-nosed.
Hence Zyrtec and Rhinocort for the rest of the week ugh.
Today I just felt like a bit of comfy food.
Good old Chinese congee (rice soup), but I like to call it the Chinese take on Risotto or Paella haha.
So I made it… and ugh, my nose is better but still a bit congested aaargh.
Ingredients
3 cups of chicken stock (made from scratch)
100g of pork
1/2 teaspoon of salt
4 dried scallops
1 spring onion stalk
1 flake of ginger
1/2 cup of medium grain rice
1. Wash the pork (WITH WATER ONLY), drain and rub 1/2 a teaspoon of salt into the pork and allow it to stand for about half an hour.
2. Rinse the rice in cold water, drain and repeat three times. Then soak the rice in one cup of water for half an hour.
3. On high heat, pour the stock into a saucepan and bring to a boil. Once boiling, pop the pork into the stock and reduce the heat down to a gentle simmer (medium flame).
(Above) Steps 1, 2 and 3…
4. Simmer the pork for half an hour. In the meantime, grab the dried scallops and rinse thoroughly under cold water. Then pop the dried scallops into a bowl of clean water. The dried scallops will take in the water (via osmosis I think) and become soft, but also swell up a bit. Leave them to soak in the water for half an hour.
5. After the pork’s simmering time of 30 minutes is up, pour in the rice (complete) with water and stir.
6. After a further 10 minutes, add in the dried scallops (and the now briney water in which the scallops were soaking in).
(Above) Simmering the pork, rice and dried scallops.
7. Simmer the pork, rice and dried scallops on a medium flame/heat for another half an hour. The rice will gradually cook, soften and expand, turning into a porridge/gruel like consistency. Turn off the stove, pluck the pork out of the saucepan and pull it apart into strands using two forks – one in your left hand and one on your right.
8. Whip out the ginger, skin it and slice into thin strands. Then do the same with the spring onion stalk. Oops, don’t forget to rinse the ginger and spring onion under water and wash before slicing. Hahaha, if you wanna use soap or detergent be my guest (you are a moron if you are 
).
9. Serve by pouring it into a bowl with a ladle, and garnish the congee with spring onions, pepper, and ginger and a couple of drops of seasame oil. A side dish of warm crispy Chinese doughnuts (a more savoury version of Churros) is optional.
10. Eat!
Lately I’ve had a bit of a think of the dishes I want to make next. I feel like going back to my roots, noodle dishes, stir-fries and grilled meats, basically stuff I like, washed down with a glass of red, white or beer.
Upload a couple more of the desserts I’ve made and then, hello, WHAT? TAN? WHORE? (My personal take on a Malaysian/Singaporean dish called Wat Tan Hor – Singaporean or Malaysian readers please correct me if I’m wrong about the origins haha).
Until next time!
