Sunday, January 23, 2011

All Meat -Hand Rolled Pizza with Home Made Pizza Dough

After Glenn and I had a nice date in Mona Lisa, Alabang a few weeks back, he asked me if I can make the super yummy Pannize that we ate. I said I'll give it a try... and so I did. Here's the result! :-)

I did a combination of a Yummy recipe (Jan/ Feb issue p.44) and a cream sauce recipe I found online. No pizza pans were available but used our pyrex dish. I'm pretty sure the dough would have booked better in a pizza pan but it still tasted yummy according to my siblings. :-)

Pizza Dough

Ingredients:
2 tsp instant yeast
3/4 cup lukewarm water
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tbsp oil
1/4 tsp salt

Directions:
1. Combine flour, yeast, water, oil and salt
2. Mix until just combined
3. Transfer dough to a light floured surface and knead for about 5 mins until well-mixed. Cover with a kitchen towel. Set aside and let rise for about 10 mins. Punch the dough down and knead for another 5 mins.
4. Divide dough into 2 parts and form into 2 small balls. Knead for about 1 minute.
5. Dust a flat work surface with flour. Using a rolling pin, flatten the 2 dough balls and slowly roll into desired shape and lay out in a pizza pan.

Cream Pizza Sauce:
1/4 cup butter
3 cloves garlic minced
1 cup grated parmesan cheese
1/2 cup all purpose cream
some Italian seasoning and oregano
pinch of salt and pepper

1. Melt butter in a sauce pan over medium heat
2. Add garlic and saute for 3 mins
3. Stir in the cheese, cream, salt and pepper
4. Add Italian seasoning and oregano
5. Remove from heat
6. Spread on pizza dough

Pizza Topping
1/4 cup Pork sausage removed from skin
1/8 cup burger bits
1/8 cup pepperoni
1 cup mozzarella cheese

Spread pizza topping on pizza dough with cream sauce.

Preheat oven at 190C and place pizza for 5 to 10 mins or until the crust is completely cooked.

Toppings for a roll:
Alfalfa sprouts
Arugula
Olive oil
Chili oil
Parmesan cheese

Add a little bit of everything on the pizza slice and roll like paper. Stuff in your mouth. :-)

Areas of Improvement:
1. Use either a pan used for pizzas (stone or aluminum should be ok, I guess)
2. Make the pizza crust thicker (just a tad bit so that its easier to roll)
3. Since its a rolled pizza, maybe lesser toppings

Braised Caramel Pork


The secret of this dish is cooking it low and slow until the pork is so tender that the meat and pork fat is so soft it.

Warning: This dish will make you eat a lot of rice! :-) Enjoy!

Taken from Yummy Magazine January/ February 2011 page 37.

Serves: 6
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 1.5 hours

Ingredients:
1 tbsp cooking oil
1 kilo pork belly, cut into 2-inch pieces
1 medium red onion
1 tbsp minced garlic
1/4 cup light soy sauce
3/4 cup panocha (for this instance, I used brown sugar)
1 cup water
1 tbsp fish sauce
3 pieces star anise
1 tsp five-spice powder
8 shitake mushrooms, sliced into strips
1/2 cup green onions, divided
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
1. Heat oil in a wok over medium heat. Add 1/3 of the pork and sear for 5 minutes or until brown all over. Reapt with the remaining pork. Set aside.
2. In the same pan, saute onions until translucent.
3. Add garlic and saute until fragrant.
4. Add pork, soy sauce, brown sugar, water, fish sauce, star anise and five-spice powder.
5. Mix well and bring to a boil.
6. Reduce heat to low and cook, covered, stirring occasionally, for 1 1/2 hours or until pork is very tender and sauce has thickened.
7. Add mushrooms and 1/4 of the chopped green onions. Mix well and continue to cook for another 10 mins.
8. Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper
9. Transfer to a serving dish and sprinkle with remaining green onions.

Bibimbap


One of the highlights of our trip to South Korea is the food! Super duper good!

For Glenn's birthday, I cooked 4 Korean dishes - Bibimbap, Japchae, Bulgogi and Kalbi-jim. All (ok except for Kalbi-Jim.. hehehe!) received good reviews. :-) Too bad that I didn't take photos of those dishes but I'll try to post them as I cook them again.

Everyday and almost every meal we had in Korea, Bibimbap was part of our orders. So, whenever I want to re-live the fun conversations and the non-stop eating, I cook this dish. Hope you enjoy this dish as much as we did!

Oh... and make sure to buy the stone bowl. That makes the rice crispy. There are two major Korean groceries in Makati ave. area. Wang Mart at #37 Polaris St (in front of P&P Tatoo shop) and another one is near Hap Chan Restaurant, I forgot the name.


Ingredients:

Steamed white rice
Bulgogi (for some strips of beef)
1 carrot, julieneed
Cooked bean sprouts, sauteed in a little sesame oil and seasoned with salt
Cooked spinach, sauteed in a little sesame oil and seasoned with salt
4 shitake mushrooms, thinly sliced, sauteed in a little sesame oil and seasoned with salt
1 egg, cooked over easy
1 tbsp sesame seed
1 tbsp dark sesame oil
strips of nori (japanese sea weed)
soy sauce to taste
Gochuchang paste (you can buy this from the Korean grocery too)

Directions:
1. Put cooked rice in a hot stone pot.
2. Place bulgogi (with juices from cooked meat) and veggies on top of rice but place seperately so you can see each ingredient beautifully placed on rice.
3. Put egg on top
4. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and drizzle with sesame oil and soy sauce
When ready to eat, mix all ingredients together with some gochuchang paste to taste. The bibimbap should be moist and not dry. Add more sesame oil and gochuchang paste to taste.



Saturday, January 22, 2011

Italian Chicken Burger

I've been buying Yummy Magazine since they released their first issue. I enjoy browsing through the pages and experimenting with the different recipes every month. Lots of women read fashion magazines on their free time, I browse through Yummy magazines. :-)

This is my first attempt in documenting my monthly cooking experiment using recipes from that magazine.

Mamang (Glenn's mom) gave me a meat grinder and I was so excited to use it. I found a perfect recipe on the front page of the January/ February 2011 issue. These burgers are a great alternative to the fatty beef burgers but it takes some getting used to also because it's herby. I didn't cook the french fries anymore.

Makes: 6 burgers
Preparation time: Bold1 hour and 45 minutes (including meat grinding, and 1 hour chilling time)
Total cooking time: 7 minutes

3 tbsps fresh rosemary
1 cup button mushrooms
1/4 cup white onion
1 tbsp Dijon Mustard
2 heads roasted garlic roasted, mashed into a paste with 1 tbsp salt
freshly ground pepper
1 kilo chicken thigh fillet - remove the skin
olive oil for frying

1. Grind the thigh fillet using the meat grinder. You can also buy ground chicken meat already. Place in a large bowl.
2. Put rosemary, mushrooms, white onion, mustard, ground pepper into a food processor until chopped and blended
3. Mix garlic paste into the rosemary mixture
4. Add rosemary mixture into the meat. Mix well until all ingredients are well blended. Using hands to mix is the best way to blend everything together.
5. Form into burger patties and chill for an hour to let the flavor settle and blend together.
6. Fry in a nonstick pan over medium heat with 1 tbsp olive oil or until the juices run clear, about 2 minutes on each side. (I cooked mine in a George Foreman grill. Its less juicier but lesser fat too)
I'm not a fan of burger buns so I made garlic mayonnaise, spread it on whole wheat bread, placed cheese, burger and pressed it in a panini maker.

Pretty ok... not something I will cook often but it was a good try.


Friday, January 21, 2011

Oatmeal and Buttermilk Muffins


Super yummy and health for breakfast. You can even prepare it a day or two in advance and pop it in the oven on a busy morning before going to work.


Makes 12 muffins:
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup buttermilk (if you can't find buttermilk, you can substitute this with 1 cup milk and 1 tbsp vinegar or lemon juice and let stand for 10 minutes)
1/2 cup butter at room temperature
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed firmly
1 egg
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
1/4 cup walnuts or raisins (optional)

1. In a bowl, combine the oats and buttermilk and leave to soak for 1 hour (I leave mine for 45 minutes)
2. Grease a 12 cup muffin pan
3. Preheat the oven 400F
4. With an electric mixer cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy
5. Beat in the egg
6. In another bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt
7. Stir into the butter mixture, alternate with the oat mixture. Fold in the raisins/ walnuts. Do not overmix.
8. Flll the prepared cups 2/3 full.
9. Bake until a cake tester inserted in the centre comes out clean, around 20 to 25 minutes.
10. Transfer to a rack to cool.