Sugar Syrup Consistency for Indian Sweets and Desserts

Sometimes, well most of the time I have a difficult time getting the right consistency for sugar syrup when making Indian sweets. I used to fail so often that I decided to get a sugar thermometer. I also a found a website that showed the different sugar syrup stages in Indian desserts with the equivalent temperature in Fahrenheit. I have not failed after using this table.

Temperature Sugar  Density Candy Making Stage Tar Stage  Application 212º F 0% Water boiling point 220º F - 222º F 70% Pearl Single Thread Absorption 235º F - 240º F 85% Softball Two thread Fudge, Gajak 242º F - 248º F 87% Firm ball 250º F - 268º F 92% Hard ball Three thread Icing  270º F - 290º F 95% Soft Crack Brittle, Chikki 300º F - 310º F 99% Hard Crack 320º F 100% Melting point Caramelize 350º F 100% Burnt

Home Made Ramen Noodles from Scratch

I have always wanted to make my own noodles from  scratch. I finally had the time and mood to make it today. I got this recipe "Not Quite Nigella" and I thought that I would give this a try. I bought a bottle of lye water or Kansui when I went back to Malaysia for the summer holidays and this could not be a better time to use my kansui. The noodles turned out better than I had expected. The yellow color of the noodles is from the lye water. The noodles were springy and chewy. I will make stir fried ramen noodles for dinner today.

Ingredients

2 cups bread flour
1 tsp kosher salt

1/2 cup of lukewarm water
1 tsp of lye water

Directions

1. Add the bread flour and kosher salt into the mixer fitted with a dough hook. Mix it on low speed for about 1 minute.
2. Mix the lukewarm water with the lye water and add it slowly to the flour.Keep kneading on the lowest speed to combine. Add more water is necessary to form a dough and knead until you get a smooth and elastic dough. It took me around 4-5 minutes
3. Wrap the dough in a cling wrap and leave it to rest for about 2-3 hours.
4. The dough should look soft and elastic after resting for about 3 hours.
5. Using a pasta machine, lightly flour the top of the machine and pass the dough through the widest setting 1 and gradually move it to setting no. 3.
6. Now the dough is thin enough to be made into ramen noodles. Prepare a tray dusted with flour and pass through the dough  the spaghetti setting.
7. Put a pot of water to boil and prepare a large bowl with cold iced water.
8. Put a small handful of noodles into the boiling water and cook it for 1 minute.
9. Remove and place it in the cold water and drain.
10. Rub a little oil on the noodles to prevent the noodles from sticking together.

The noodles are now ready for stir frying or you can even put into hot soup. Add some fish cake or eomuk and it will taste amazing.

Korean Fish Cake Eomuk

My daughter is off to college and I am missing her so much. I just wished that she was somewhere close enough for me to visit her over the weekend.  Feeling a bit empty inside and after cross mad with the boys for messing up the house, as usual, i started visiting some of my favorite cooking Youttube channels. I came across this fish cake recipe in Maangchi's youtube channel.  I had some of the main ingredients in my freezer and all I had to do was modify the recipe a bit based on what I had at home and fix this before the dad comes home from work. It took something like 15 minutes to make the fish paste and another 15 minutes to fry it. Pretty quick right. It tasted really good.

Ingredients

1/2 lb cod fish fillet or hake or any white fleshed fish fillet
1/2 lb shelled prawns and deveined
1/4 cup white onion
1 large egg white
2 garlic pips
1 tsp white pepper powder
1/2 cup tapioca starch
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp sesame oil

Directions

1. Put all the ingredients into the blender and blitz it for about 2 mins or until all the ingredients come to a smooth paste.
2. Heat up some cooking oil on medium heat. Take about 1/3 a cup of fish paste and flatten it over the back of an oiled spatula.
3. Start rolling the fish paste from the wider edge a bit by bit until it form a long roll and drop it gently into the oil.
4. Fry until the fish cake is cooked and evenly browned. Drain any excess oil on a paper towel. The fish cake will float when it is cooked.
5. The fish cake tastes good on its own without any condiments.

Cream Cheese Wontons

I always look to Fridays and I always like to celebrate Fridays with my family. Last day of school, last day of work, last day for everything  for the week and two full days of holidays. This Friday I was planning on going to the mall with my family, do some shopping and have some chinese food. At the last minute, I thought to myself why not have the food at home and then watch a movie at home. I had also just finished watching 2 videos on how to make fried loh mien and cheese wontons. Great, we will have Panda Express at home! I made cream cheese wontons and fried noodles. The cream cheese wontons tasted so great and it such a simple recipe. I used regular cream cheese but the next time I do this, I will make it with low fat cream cheese, because I cant stop at one.

Ingredients

1 block of cream cheese, at room temperature

1 tsp sugar

some chopped scallions and some chopped red chillies

some wonton wrapper

oil for deep frying

Directions

1. Mix cream cheese and sugar with a whisk or spatula until it is smooth.

2. Mix in the chopped scallions and red chillies

3. Wet the edges of a wonton wrapper and put about 1 tsp of cream cheese mixture in the middle. 

4. Fold the edges of the wonton wrappers and deep fry it on medium high heat.

Note:

Dont put too much cheese filling in the wonton wrapper because the filling might come out while frying.

Kaju Katli

This is a one of the Indian sweets that doesn't have ghee in it. At least in my recipe. My daughter doesn't really like Indian sweets but this sweet she loves.

Ingredients

4 cups powdered cashew nuts ( grind about  4/12 to 5 cups of raw cashews and then measure)

2 cups sugar

a pinch of salt

1 tsp powdered cardamom powder

Directions

1.  Boil sugar with a bit of water until it reaches soft ball stage (syrup should form a soft ball when poured into a bowl of water)

2. Add in cashew flour and cardamon powder and mix until mixture starts to gather together and forms a soft ball. Burfi should look wet and you should be able to pour it onto the parchment paper.

3. Pour mixture into a on-stick parchment paper and cover it with another piece of parchment paper

4. Taking a rolling pin and smooth out the kaju mixture or kaju burfi to about 5 mm thickness.

5. Cut out into desired shapes when the burfi is slightly hard.

6. Once the kaju katlis are cool, store in a airtight container.

Note:

1. Make sure that cashew nuts are at room temperature before grinding it into flour

2. Grind one cup of raw cashews at a time.

3. I used the Preethi mixer and used the small grinder. Grind the cashews at one go until the cashews turns into powder and the cashew flour looks a little heavy. Dont grind until the cashew turns oily.

4. If the kaju burfi or kaju katli is too dry, you can crumble the burfis and add a little water and heat the burfi again until it becomes a soft ball.

Power Packed Banana Chia Smoothie

I made this power packed smoothie after my workout today and it tasted simply delicious. Just mildly sweet and filling and refreshing.

Ingredients

1 medium ripe banana (about 90g)

1/2 cup 2% milk

1/4 cup 0% fat greek yogurt

1 tbsp chia seeds

some crushed ice

a little bit of water

Directions

Blend all the ingredients together and enjoy.

Makes 2 servings. About 120 calories per serving. 

Cranberry Sauce

I have always 


I have always eaten dried cranberries. This time I had the chance to taste some fresh cranberries. They were not as tart as I had expected it to be. Slightly sour but still nice to eat. I bought a large bag of cranberries that were on sale. I was the only one munching on the fresh cranberries and since I could not eat all of it I decided to make cranberry sauce.

Fresh Cranberries - just love the red color

Cranberries boiling away

Final Product - Blood Red Cranberry Sauce

Ingredients

2 lb cranberries - wash and drain

1 cup sugar

2 cups cranberry or orange juice

Directions

1. Combine the sugar, orange juice and cranberries in a medium saucepan

2. Bring up to a simmer over medium heat and cook for 15 - 20 minutes or until the cranberry sauce is thick and the cranberries have turned all mushy.

3. Let cool completely before serving.