Easy homemade Crispy Vietnamese Spring Rolls

I had always wanted to make this snack myself so that I wouldn't have to rely on the Chinese dim sum restaurants for them!

Which I did make them two days ago.  See the photos below.

The spring rolls are pretty easy to make.  All you need are the following ingredient below:

Ingredients

Marinates
10g or 1 tsp baking soda
10g or 1 pinch of salt
1 tbsp ordinary sugar
1 tbsp white pepper
1 tbsp corn starch or corn flour
1 tbsp sesame oil
1.5 tbsp light soy sauce
3 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp minced garlic (I made myself a jar of lazy garlic ie. chopped garlic in white wine vinegar)
1 tbsp onion (or shallots) (I used a half of a medium sized onion because I didn't have shallots in the fridge)
1 egg


Fillings
150g defrosted medium sized prawns
200g minced pork


Spring Roll Skin
Vietnamese rice paper spring roll skins (14 sheets)


Dipping Sauce
A bottle of Vietnamese dipping sauce (bought it from the local Sainsbury's)


Steps

1.  Mix the fillings with the marinates in a mixing bowl and combine them well.  Put the mixture in the fridge for at least one hour.

2.  Use a damp cloth to soften the spring roll wrapper rather than soaking the sheet in water.  This will make the skin easier to manage when it comes to filling and rolling the rolls.

3.  Take the mixture out of the fridge and fill the damped spring roll sheet with the mixture.  Roll and place the spring roll in a tray.  Do the same with the rest of the paper sheets.  Make sure that the rolls are placed apart to prevent them from sticking to each other.

4.  Heat the oil in a wok to 350'F.  Once the oil is ready, place one spring roll gently in the wok one at a time.  Make sure that the rolls are kept apart as the barely hot paper sheet can stick to other rolls.  (I placed three rolls in one fry as my wok is quite small)

5.  Once the rolls are ready, place them on a paper kitchen towel to soak the excess oil.  Let the rolls cool for 30 minutes before consumption.  Dip them in the Vietnamese spring roll dipping sauce for extra kick.  Enjoy the snack!

Photo 1:  Vietnamese spring rolls in a hot wok!!!

Photo 2:  Dipping sauce for theVietnamese spring rolls

Part 3: Chocolate drop cookies

I made a third batch of the chocolate drop cookies today.  I used cashew nuts in this experiment.

The other ingredients in the recipe by Anna Olson remained unchanged.  Except, for this time, I used 120g brown sugar and 30g granulated sugar.  The cookies turned out to be perfectly sweet.  Not too sweet or not too bland.  I'll stick with this sugar measurement in the future.

I kept the chocolate chips in the fridge on the day it was purchased (about 3 weeks ago) all this time because I wished to preserve the shape of the chips.  I would recommend this tip to anyone who wishes to bake the cookies and wants to retain the shape of the chips.

Not only that, when the batter was ready, instead of making small balls, I just used an ice cream scoop to scoop a lump of batter and place it in a baking tray.  I did the same with the rest of the batter and place the tray in the fridge for an hour.  The reason is the lumps were too sticky to handle at this stage.  It would be easily handled when the butter in the batter hardened.

After an hour, I began to make balls out of the batter.  Then, I placed the cookie balls back in the fridge to cool them for an hour in order to retain the shape of the balls.  After one hour, I preheated the oven at 180'C for ten minutes.  Then, I divided the balls into two separate trays so that each of the balls had room to melt into a disc.  After that, I placed the trays in the oven and baked the cookies for 15 minutes or until the edge of the cookies turned brown.  The cookies were then removed from the oven and cooled for 30 minutes before I started enjoying them.

Below are the photos of the finished product!!!  Enjoy baking these cookies.

Photo 1:  Cookie balls are being baked in the oven

Photo 2:  the cookie dough are melting at this stage 

due to the heat in the oven

Photo 3:  Cookies are freshly out of the oven

Photo 4:  Chocolate Drop Cookie.  Yummy!!!

Blueberry sorbet with ground nutmeg

I had planned to make sorbet for a while ever since I bought a Kenwood ice cream machine at a local charity shop.

As the summer is arriving, it's best to make plans in order to escape the heat.  Eating sorbet is one of them.

I searched for recipes online and found one which was reasonably easy.  At the same time, I wanted to make the sorbet taste different from the others.  So, it was time to experiment a new and simple recipe.

I had a box of 150 g frozen blueberries which I bought from the local Aldi for £1.49.  My kitchen had a good supply of sugar, both granulated and brown. 

As my ice cream machine was rather small, I decided to make 300 g of sorbet (150 g blueberries plus 150 g sugar syrup) only.

On the Easter Sunday, at 10pm, I made the sugar syrup and chilled it in the fridge overnight.  I made the sorbet the next day.  See the photos and Youtube videos below.

Below is the recipe which can also be found on the Youtube videos below:

Blueberry sorbet with ground nutmeg recipe

150 g granulated sugar (use honey for healthier option)
150 ml water
150 barely frozen blueberries
a pinch of salt (5g)
a pinch of nutmeg (5g)

Steps

1.  Pour 150 g granulated sugar and 150 ml water into a pot.

Boil the mixture until the sugar dissolves. 
Remove the pot from the hob.
Let the mixture cool for at least 2 hours. 
Chill the mixture in the fridge for at least 10 hours or  overnight.
(I made the syrup at night so that I could make the sorbet later in the evening on the next day)

2.  Pour the blueberries and  half of the sugar syrup into the food blender. 

Add a pinch of salt and a pinch of ground nutmeg to the mixture. 
Blend the mixture for  3 minutes. 
Then, add the rest of the sugar syrup to the mixture.
Blend it for another 2 minutes.

3.  Pour the mixture into a sieve over a bowl to remove any lumps from the mixture.

Chill the mixture in the fridge for at least 4 hours.

4.  Freeze the mixture for 30 minutes only before pouring it into the fast-freezing insulated bowl of the ice cream maker. 

(This step actually shortens the amount of time spent on making the sorbet using an ice cream machine.  It took me only 15 minutes to make the sorbet)

Pour the softly frozen blueberry and syrup mixture in the bowl.  Switch on the ice cream machine and watch the machine in action.

5.  After the sorbet is ready, scoop it out of the ice cream and put it in a plastic tub.  Freeze it again until it is ready to be consumed.  (I tried a cup of the freshly made sorbet before freezing it.  It was awesome! :-))

Enjoy the recipe!!!

Photo 1: Blueberry sorbet base

Photo 2:  Blueberry puree and sugar syrup blended with salt and ground nutmeg



Photo 3:  Blueberry sorbet in a plastic cup

Photo 4:  Blueberry sorbet



Video 1: Sorbet base is being churned by the paddle in the ice cream machine

Video 2:  Celebrating the success of making blueberry sorbet!!!

Classic Chocolate Drop Cookies

This was my first time baking chocolate drop cookies.

I watched Anna Olson's Youtube video recently and decided to have a go.

The first attempt went badly.  The cookies were rather hard because I used butter spread instead of pure butter.

The second attempt went well and the cookies tasted excellent.  This time, I used shortening for cookies and pastry.  I even remembered the recipe by heart this time.

For cup-to-gram measurement, the US-UK conversion comes from the link below:
http://www.goodtoknow.co.uk/recipes/531168/cups-to-grams-converter

Chocolate Drop Cookie recipe by Anna Olson

Wet ingredients

½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature (115g)
½ cup packed light brown sugar (90g)
½ cup granulated sugar (90g)
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract (10 ml)

Dry ingredients
1 ¼ cup all-purpose flour (185g)
1 tbsp cornstarch (15ml)
½ tsp baking soda (7.5g)
½ tsp salt (7.5g)

To be added last
1 ½ cup chocolate chips (225g)
1 cup lightly toasted, coarsely chopped pecans (optional) (150g) (I used roasted walnuts)

(Note:I am planning to make another batch of cookies using a reduced amount of sugar because I find 180g of sugar is a bit too much for my teeth)

Below are the photos of the cookies:

Photo 1: 1st attempt- cookie balls before baking

Photo 2: 1st attempt- freshly made cookies

Photo 3: 2nd attempt- cooled and ready to eat cookies

Photo 4: 2nd attempt - cookies ready for storage

Blueberry muffins

This morning, I decided to bake plain blueberry muffins for treat.

I used Anna Olson's recipe of classic streusel blueberry muffins but this time, I excluded the streusel from the recipe.  I just wanted to watch my weight.

Preparation is key to baking.  I had all the ingredients in my pantry so I just got on with gathering and mixing them.  I replaced the butter with sunflower spread which made the mixture look more like a batter.  

This time, I just used all the blueberries from the packet that I bought for the previous blueberry muffins.  I also bought a box of 300g frozen blueberries from Aldi for £1.49, compared to Waitrose's £2.20 400g frozen blueberries.  I think they have increased the price to £2.30.  Aldi's frozen blueberries are the cheapest.

Below are the photos of my blueberry muffins:

Baking disaster : Mooncakes

This morning, I attempted to make mooncakes using the mung bean paste and the new mooncake moulds from Malaysia.

I prepared the mooncake skin following an online recipe and the given steps.  See the photos below for the result.  

I am totally disappointed with the result.  This means, I will have to look for better recipes. 

I am unsure about what went wrong apart from the dough of the mooncake skin had been kept in the fridge for four days.  And, the oven was not been preheated and the temperature was set at 180'C. They were baked for 15 minutes.  

There was a bit of dough left so I decided to make some biscuits.  They taste better than the mooncakes!

One thing for sure : don't use mung bean paste for filling.  It's best to use red bean (adzuki beans) paste or lotus paste or durian paste.

Lesson learned!

Photo 1: baked mooncakes

Photo 2: close up photo of the baked mooncakes

Cinnamon Rolls - Part 4

Today, I made cinnamon rolls for the fourth time although the second attempt had never been mentioned before.

I managed to knead the dough on my glass worktop.  This time, I applied a lot of flour on the surface of the worktop to prevent the dough from sticking on it.  I was able to form a proper shaped dough like those on Youtube videos.  I was really excited but had to wait for 1.5 hours for the dough to rise. 

This time, I applied some cooking oil to the bowl before placing the dough in it.

Patience is a great virtue.  The dough doubled in size after 1.5 hours.  This time, the dough was easier to be removed from the bowl where it had sat due to the coating of the cooking oil in the bowl.  

I sprinkled some flour on the glass worktop and on the dough before it was taken out of the bowl.  I found that the rolling of the dough easier as the dough was not sticking to the glass worktop.  I was able to roll the dough four times this time.  The shape of a cinnamon roll had formed successfully.

I placed the cinnamon rolls in a tray and left it in the cold oven to rise for another 1.5 hours.

After 1.5 hours, I simply insert the tray into the preheated oven at 180'C and baked for 15 minutes.

Voila!  Enjoy the photos!

Photo 1: dough is ready for rising

Photo 2: waiting to rise

Photo 3: cinnamon sugar filling

Photo 4: waiting for the second rise

Photo 5: ready for baking

Photo 6: close up of ready cinnamon rolls

Photo 7: freshly baked cinnamon rolls