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Nov 19 2008

The Cookie Monster Bakes - Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

Published by Foong under Recipes, Snacks, Sweet Stuff |

Do you ever get that sudden chocolate cookie craving which simply must be fulfilled, otherwise you feel all so irritable and down and depressed?

Well, I get that A LOT. Not because I am a very depressing person. Or that I eat loads of comfort food. But it is usually due to that time of the month when I’d have a sudden high craving for carbs and it would definitely be chocolate! And cookies. I am a cookie monster through and through.

Anyway, due to the recent melamine scare, I am staying off store-bought cookies for a while. Also, I can never find any GOOD commercial chocolate chip cookies. Most are total rip-off. Either it’s too sweet or just plain un-chocolatey. And too crunchy or grainy with barely any flavours too. Like biting into baked sand or something. Blearghh.

No wonder there’s this saying that some things are best done ourselves. It must definitely refer to baking cookies! To satisfy my cookie monster craving for some chocolate cookies, this is what I made..

Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

Trust me, it is as good as it looks and so chocolatey, the cookies didn’t last long before it was gulped down by the cookie monster who baked these, Mr Picky and wonders of wonders, The Food Critic! Yep, this is an all-time favourite at home. Hah! It’s bye-bye Chipsmore and hello, Foong’s Cookies!

Anyway, I got this recipe from Baking Bites (whose site I simply love as she has SO many great baking recipes to chew on…) and did some minor modifications. Very, very minor modifications this time around.

So, here’s the recipe…

Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup butter

1 cup soft brown sugar (I know, I know, I use A LOT of brown sugar in everything!)

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp coffee essence

1 cup chocolate chips

1/2 cup chocolate buttons

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 F / 180 C. Line cookie pan with baking paper.

2. Sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt

3. Place the butter and brown sugar in a bowl

3. Place the butter and brown sugar in another bowl

4. Cream the butter and sugar

5. Add the egg and beat it in thoroughly

6. Add the vanilla essence

7. Then, add in the coffee essence and mix well

**Note: You will notice that I have a fork in the mixing bowl…that’s because I use good old fashion ‘manual power’ for all my mixing with only a fork as I don’t have a mixer….yet! But you can use the electric mixer, it will definitely be faster.**

8. Gradually stir in the dry ingredients

9. Mix the ingredients well and the mixture should become like this

10. Throw in the chocolate chips

11. Being a typical chocoholic, I had to add more chocolate so I added chocolate buttons too

12. After stirring it all in, the batter is now ready

13. Drop the batter on the cookie pan, about half a tablespoon size each

14. Bake the cookies at 180C for about 10 minutes or up to 15 minutes (depending on your oven).

15. When it is done, it should look like this

These cookies are a cross between crunchy and chewy so it is a perfect combination of chocolates with a rich, soft-crunchy texture. And I am glad I added the chocolate buttons as it has given these cookies some chocolatey creaminess due to it’s half-melted texture inside the cookies. Yummy!

Here's the double chocolate chip cookies

Here's another look at the double chocolate chip cookies

I love these so much, I think I am going to bake it again pretty soon!

Anyway, I also tried out another cookie recipe (yes, it also has chocolate in it) and I will post it up as the Cookie Monster Bakes Part 2 soon. Wait for it!

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Nov 17 2008

Homemade herbed hamburgers, two ways to eat it

Published by Foong under Fusion Food, Recipes, Western Food |

I’ve been meaning to learn to make our own hamburgers so that we do not need to eat those store-bought frozen hamburgers which are oily and full of MSG. Considering hamburgers merely consist of ground meat, how hard can it be right?

Besides, The Food Critic is really crazy about hamburgers. Every time we go to the grocery store, he simply must stop at the frozen food and pick out a packet of hamburgers. A few times when we do eat out, he’d insist on choosing an American restaurant like TGIF serving good burgers (nope, it is definitely not the same as those fast-food burgers!). So, in response to his special request for homemade hamburgers, I gave it a try.

I didn’t really go around searching for a hamburger recipe. In fact, I borrowed some tips from Jessie’s (The Hungry Mouse) meatball recipe and changed it a bit. After all, meat patties or hamburgers are simply the flatter, bigger version of meatballs. I think. Heheh.

Anyway, this is the end result…

Homemade herbed hamburger

Of course The Food Critic was ecstatic. He finally gets to eat homemade hamburgers without needing to spend a fortune at some overpriced restaurant. I made quite a lot, so he actually ate it for lunch and dinner!

So, here’s the recipe for:

Homemade Herbed Hamburgers

Ingredients

For hamburger

600gm minced port & chicken

2 tbsp garlic powder

1/2 tbsp black pepper

2 tbsp mixed fresh herbs, finely chopped

2 tbsp light soy sauce

3 - 4 tbsp instant oats (or you could use breadcrumbs if you want)

For special sauce

3 tbsp peas

3 tbsp diced carrots

2 large onions, diced

2 tbsp garlic, diced

5 no. fresh shiitake mushrooms, sliced

1 tbsp oyster sauce (or mushroom sauce)

1 tbsp light soy sauce

4 tbsp soya milk (sugarless)

1 tbsp chicken stock

a dash of pepper

2 tbsp corn flour

5 -6 tbsp water

Instructions

1. Prepare your mince meat and mixed it together

2. Add the garlic powder and mixed it around

3. Add in the mixed herbs and black pepper and remember to stir it and mix it in evenly

4. Add in the light soy sauce

5. Stir in the oats and mix well

6. Heat up some oil in a pan. Form meat patties with a ladle and slide it into the hot oil.

Fry it, both sides, until it turns brownish like this and remove from heat.

7. Fry the meat patties, on both sides, until it turns brownish like this and remove from heat.

I know you must be wondering why there’s also a ’special sauce’ ingredients. Well, instead of just serving up the hamburgers as well, burgers, I thought I might as well use the leftover oil in the pan to create a special sauce as toppings for the meat patties to be served as a main dish, like this:

Hamburgers as a meat patty main dish with special sauce

So, now that you’ve fried all of your burgers and there is some oil left. Don’t throw it out! Use it to make the special sauce as it would have all the added flavours of the meat. Right from the start, I used olive oil and I didn’t use much oil so ended up, I have about 3 tbsp of oil left in the wok which is just perfect for the sauce.

Now, on to the sauce:

1. Get all your ingredients ready

2. Mix the sauces together in a bowl

3. Add in the soya milk and then the corn flour

4. Stir and mix the sauces well. The corn flour is to thicken it so that it won’t be so watery.

5. Sautee the garlic and onions in the same pan used to fry the burgers. If you look, you'd notice that there's still some bits of meat from the burgers I fried earlier.

6. Add in the rest of the ingredients

7. Then add in the sauces and stir.

8.Let the mixture simmer over medium to low heat for several minutes

9. Then it is done, ready to be served with the meat patties / hamburgers.

You just pour it over the hamburgers and serve

But if you prefer something you can eat on the go, then you don’t need to prepare the sauce. Just serve the meat patties as the filling for a hamburger sandwich.