2019 CNY Cooking Class

Merry Christmas and Happy 2019! 

Before you know it, Chinese Lunar New Year (2/5/2019) will be here. There will be a cooking class on how to bake Chinese New Year cake, aka nian gao, and sweet dumpling. The class will be conducted in First Chinese Baptist Church in Walnut. This is a hands-on and demonstration combined class. Space is limited and on a first come first served basis.

Address and registration information is below:

2019 Cooking Class Preview

As the year is almost over, it is about time to look back and count the blessings. 2018 has been an extremely busy and fruitful year for me with 21 Los Angeles county public library cooking programs and monthly cooking class in my church. 

Here are some snapshots of the classes (photo by Peter A. and Tony W.) :

"A" team

Chef Jerry G.

Chef Jerry's signature dish: Chicken spinach penne rustica

Below is a preview of the upcoming classes in the first quarter of 2019:

January: to welcome the Chinese New Year of the Pig, a class on how to bake nian gao and make sweet dumpling will be welcomed by many. 焗紅豆年糕、流心黑芝麻湯圓

February: Valentine's day favorite, sweetheart custard pastry and a low sugar cake will be introduced. 甜心甜品、香葱低糖肉鬆蛋糕

March: Street foods of Hong Kong and Taiwan: HK style egg waffle and scallion pancake 雞蛋仔、葱油餅

More details will be available on a latter date.

Chocolate and Walnut Babka 猶太麵包

" Take the finest flour and bake twelve loaves of bread, using two-tenths of an ephah for each loaf. Arrange them in two stacks, six in each stack, on the table of pure gold before the Lord. By each stack put some pure incense as a memorial portion to represent the bread and to be a food offering presented to the Lord. This bread is to be set out before the Lord regularly, Sabbath after Sabbath, on behalf of the Israelites, as a lasting covenant"         Leviticus 24:5-8

「你要取細麵烤成十二個餅，每一個餅用兩公斤細麵。 你要把餅擺列成兩排，每排六個，放在耶和華面前精金的桌子上； 把純乳香放在每排餅上，象徵這些餅作獻給耶和華的火祭。 每一個安息日，亞倫都要把餅擺在耶和華面前，不可間斷，這是以色列人永遠的約」      利未記 24:5-8

November Cooking Class 十一月烹飪班

Hainan Chicken with Rice 海南雞飯

Hainan chicken is my family's favorite dish. To make this chicken, I have tried using the soaking method, in which the chicken is dipped in a hot, herb-infused brine to cook, and this steaming recipe. Both methods give me a moist chicken but I found steaming is easier to do and less wasteful, as the brine in the soaking method is merely disposed of after cooking the chicken.

Do you like the chicken more than the rice? Or the ginger and scallion infused oil? I think they are like legs of a table. Each one is indispensable from the other, and essential to the dish as a whole.

October Cooking Class 十月份烹飪班

2018 Mooncake Classes 月餅班

How to Make Salted Egg (Yolk Only) 淨咸蛋黃做法

Beginning this project, I was doubtful if it would work the way I saw in the pictures, if the salted egg yolks would turn out to be round, solid, yet slightly oozy. But after doing it myself, I am convinced. It is indeed an ingenious way to make salted egg yolks, without the egg whites or using the whole egg method. I have been making my own salty egg for a long time since the import is prohibited by the FDA (only cooked salty eggs can be imported to the US). But most of the time, only the egg yolks are used, like in mooncakes or other bakery products.

There is not really a recipe for it, meaning the quantity of the ingredients is arbitrary, not like in baking. It is the "how" which matters. The salt can be reused.

Black Forest Tart (No Bake) 黑森林撻 (免焗)

This is a nice summer-friendly, no-bake variation of the traditional black forest cake. I used dark chocolate mousse as the filling and dark sweet cherries. Use the finest chocolate for best flavor. Both homemade or store bought tart crusts do not require baking, so it is a superb dessert for hot summer days. If you keep the tart in the freezer and eat it frozen, the texture of the chocolate mousse becomes almost like ice cream.

Special note about silky and smooth chocolate mousse: the temperatures of the three different mixtures--egg, melted chocolate and whipped cream--have to be very close, if not the same. If the chocolate or egg mixture is too warm, the whipped cream will deflate, resulting with a dense mousse. If the cream is too cold, the chocolate will seize into flecks, making the mousse grainy.

Sprouted Wheat Pancake 發芽麵粉班戟

What is sprouted flour?
Sprouted flour is milled using sprouted wheat. By soaking wheat kernels in water, it will germinate and sprout because it is the seed of the wheat plant. Under the right conditions, the wheat kernels will grow into a wheat plant, but this process is stopped in order for us to have sprouted flour. The sprouted wheat is dried, then ground into flour.

What is the difference between using sprouted flour vs non-sprouted flour (regular wheat flour)?
Sprouted flour is tastier, more nutritious, and easier to digest. When a seed germinates, the enzymes start turning it into a growing organism. Hence the nutritional value increases.

It makes this pancake more nutty, tender with melt-in-your-mouth feel. Other than using it to make pancake, it can substitute with other whole wheat flour recipe.

Give it a try and you'll love it!

Sourdough Rye Bread 裸麥包

It is amazing how four simple ingredients--flour, water, yeast and salt (plus time and patience)--can produce such a nutritious and flavorful food that human beings have consumed since thousands of years ago.

This is my first time using rye to make bread. Rye is very different from wheat. Although rye flour has similar gluten producing proteins, there is virtually no gluten formation. It has more bran, mineral, fiber, soluble sugars, pentosans, and amylase enzymes than wheat flour. All these differences make baking with rye a bit challenging. In particular, amylase will cause the bread crumb to have more of a gummy texture in a process called "starch attack" (I am not going to go into details here. For more information, read Hamelman's book, Bread, p40-42)

Oatmeal Bread (No Knead Method) 燕麥麵包(免揉)

"Most bread produced in factory bakeries in the industrialized world is made without the critical step of fermentation.....Dough conditioners, flavorings, processing aids, gums, fats and additives are used in an attempt to save one precious thing, TIME....They mix, shape, and bake a loaf in less than an hour. A baker using traditional methods and actual fermentation may take up to 72 hours."  by Martin Philip, head baker of King Arthur Flour, "Breaking Bread" (emphasis added).

Crispy Fish Skin with Salted Egg Yolk 香脆金沙魚皮

If you follow my blog, you would notice that I like snacks, appetizers or small bites food a lot. This is another good one that is very popular in Asia. It is not difficult nor complicated to make if you could get fried fish skin from local restaurant or store.

Updated Library Cooking Programs 免費烹飪項目

Your tax dollars at work! Increased funding=more free programs. Check out my updated list of 19 cooking programs in the first half of the year:

Phoebe Chow (morethanbread.net)

2018 Library Cooking Program Lineup

For more details, visit: http://www.colapublib.org/calendar/

Or morethanbread.net

Date and Time	Library	Program
1/13/18 Saturday 10:30 am	West Hollywood	Street Foods of Hong Kong: Egg Waffle雞蛋仔
1/27/18 Saturday 3 pm	Florence	Gold Fish Nian Gao錦鯉年糕
1/29/18 Monday 5pm	Los Nietos	Street Foods of Hong Kong: Egg Waffle, Curry Fish Balls 雞蛋仔、咖喱魚蛋
1/31/18 Wednesday 6 pm	Rivera	Gold Fish Nian Gao 錦鯉年糕
2/3/18 Saturday 2 pm	Lennox	Street Foods of Hong Kong: Vegetarian Lo Mei, Banana roll 齋鹵味、香蕉糕
2/10/18 Saturday 3 pm	San Dimas	Street Foods of Hong Kong: Egg Waffle, Pork Jerky 雞蛋仔、豬肉乾
2/17/18 Saturday 2 pm	La Canada Flintridge	BBQ Pork, Pineapple Bun 叉燒、菠蘿包
2/24/18 Saturday 2 pm	Clifton M. Brakensiek	BBQ Pork, Pineapple Bun 叉燒、菠蘿包
3/17/18 Saturday 2 pm	Angelo M. Iacoboni	BBQ Pork, Egg Waffle 叉燒、雞蛋仔
3/24/18 Saturday 1 pm	Anthony Quinn	BBQ Pork, Pineapple Bun, Milk Tea 叉燒、菠蘿包、絲襪奶茶
4/7/18 Saturday 3 pm	Hermosa Beach	Street Foods of Hong Kong: Vegetarian Lo Mei, Steamed rice cake 齋鹵味、缽仔糕
4/21/18 Saturday 2 pm	Huntington Park	Street Foods of Hong Kong: Egg Waffle雞蛋仔
4/28/18 Saturday 1 pm	E. Rancho Dominguez	Street Foods of Hong Kong: Egg Waffle 雞蛋仔
5/19/18 Saturday 2 pm	El Camino Real	BBQ Pork, Pineapple Bun, Milk Tea 叉燒、菠蘿包、絲襪奶茶
5/21/18 Monday 6 pm	Pico Rivera	Street Foods of Hong Kong: Egg Waffle 雞蛋仔
5/26/18 Saturday 2 pm	Graham	BBQ Pork, Pineapple Bun 叉燒、菠蘿包
6/2/18 Saturday 2 pm	Maywood	BBQ Pork, Pineapple Bun 叉燒、菠蘿包
6/9/18 Saturday 2 pm	Cudahy	Street Foods of Hong Kong: Vegetarian Lo Mei, Banana roll, Tofu Pudding 齋鹵味、香蕉糕、豆腐花
6/16/18 Saturday 1 pm	Lawndale	Street Foods of Hong Kong: Vegetarian Lo Mei, Steamed rice cake 齋鹵味、缽仔糕
6/23/18 Saturday 1 pm	Norwalk	BBQ Pork, Pineapple Bun 叉燒、菠蘿包

Sous Vide Rib Eye Steak 真空低溫牛扒

I am a believer after trying this sous vide method to cook steak. It is never overcooked and dry, I think this is the best way to cook an expensive cut of meat. Although it may take more time to do it, your patience will be greatly rewarded. The active working time is so minimal that I can literally walk away after setting it up.

Sous vide is not new (French meaning "under vacuum"). It has been a well-known French cooking method for hundreds of years. By submerging food that has been vacuum packed in a constant temperature over time, no moisture is lost and the whole piece of meat/food is consistently cooked to perfection.