Yam Sweet Potato Bread

One day, I saw a posting from a childhood friend of mine. She is a good baker and a very good cake decorator. We live thousands of kilometer from each other. Thanks to social media, we can still communicate to each other. She posted yam sweet potato bread photos and also gave me the recipe.

I really loved to try that because I baked bread frequently lately for my family. We went to the Asian shop where I could find frozen grated yam. Unfortunately, I cannot find purple sweet potato here. So, I did this with orange colour sweet potato.

I modified the recipe and this time I did not use water-roux method. The result is a big hit with the boys. They love it so much. This time, the bread will not last one week (I usually freeze some portion for later consumption).

Here is the recipe.

Ingredients
Bread ingredients:
100 gr steamed mashed sweet potato and purple yam (I used 50/50)
350 gr bread flour
2 eggs
30 gr sweet condensed milk
40 gr sugar
1/4 tsp salt
25 gr melted butter
2 tsp instant yeast
120 ml milk

Filling ingredients:
400 gr steamed mashed sweet potato and purple yam (I used 300/100)
35 gr melted butter
30 gr sugar
40 gr sweet condensed milk

1 egg, whisked

How to make
Filling:
Mixed all the ingredients until it is well mixed and set aside. Keep in the refrigerator until we are going to use it.

Bread:
1. Mix all ingredients, excepts butter and milk, and knead the dough.
2. Add the milk while kneading the dough.
3. Add butter.
4. Knead the dough until it is smooth and does not stick to the wall of the bowl or until it can be stretched to form a thin membrane. This dough may be a bit sticky compared to the normal bread dough because of the sweet potato content.
5. Shape the dough into a ball shape and put in the bowl. Cover the bowl with a cling film and place it in a warm place to proof the dough until it is at least twice as big as the initial ball shape dough.
6. Punch the dough and divide it into portions. I divided the dough into 50 grams portions because I made it for my children, easier for eating.
7. Roll the dough into a thin layer and fill it with one big table spoon of the filling. Cover the filling tightly. Do this for all portions.
8. Proof the bread again for around 30-60 minutes.
9. Preheat the oven 180 Celcius.
10. Brush the top of the bread with whisked egg and bake it for around 20-25 minutes or until it is golden brown.

Enjoy the bread.

The filling

Fresh from the oven

Pastel Goreng/Gebakken Pastei/Fried Puff

I loved this snack. We usually bought it at the market. It is available here in some Asian store, but I missed the original taste. I remembered that we had some glass noodle, and since my husband bought me tool to form the snack, I wanted to try to make this snack for the children and husband myself.

Of course, as usual, we would freeze some portion for later consumption.

Ingredients 
(for the skin) - 1 recipe *I make 2 recipes of this skin
250 gr all purpose flour
1 egg
40 gr margarine
60-100 ml water (don't use all immediately, but add it bit by bit)
1/2 tsp salt
oil

(for the filling)
2-3 carrot (cut into pieces)
50 gr green peas (in bottle or can)
200 gr chicken fillet (cut into small pieces)
150-200 gr glass noodle (soak it first in hot boiled water)
3-4 cloves garlic, pressed
3-4 cloves shallot, cut in small pieces
salt
pepper
1-2 tbsp soy sauce
oil

2-3 hard boiled eggs, cut into 6 pieces per egg.

Method:
For the skin:
1. Mix the flour, margarine and egg. Add water bit by bit while kneading the dough until the dough does not stick on your hand or on the wall of the bowl.
2. Set aside.

For the filling:
1. Heat the oil and stir fry the garlic and shallot until caramelized
2. Add the chicken fillet, until it is almost golden brown.
3. Add carrot and pea.
4. Add the glass noodle.
5. Add salt, pepper, sugar, soy sauce to taste. Adjust the taste.

How to combine:
1. Take a portion of the dough. Roll the dough until thin and place it in the pastei form.
2. Put 1 table spoon of the filling and a piece of egg and press the sides together to form a nice half circle shape.
3. Heat oil in a wok and fry the pastei until it is brown.

I am a bit dissapointed with the skin. Although the taste is quite OK, but the skin is not as crispy as the ones I used to buy at the snack shops or markets in my home country, Indonesia. I am considering another trial, however, since there are more projects coming these few months, I think I have to delay the next trial. Now, it is time to enjoy the pastei with chilli sauce.

Baked Cauliflower Cheese

A simple vegetable based dish, but still can be enjoyed with our children (toddlers).


Because of the time of harvesting of the certain vegetables and fruits this year, and at the same time the conflict and banning between EU and Russia, there are excess of some vegetables and fruits. That is why, I try to cook and introduce and prepare as much as I can vegetables and fruits on our table.


One of the vegetables that is sold cheaper than it usually is to avoid the waste, is cauliflower. Usually we cook it (in Indonesia) as clear soup. But, I have tried some oven based and cream soup recipes with that. One of the easy and quick (relative to Asian dishes) is cauliflower cheese oven.


I served it last week and we ate that with grill skin salmon - with homemade teriyaki sauce.


Here is the cauliflower dish. I took the recipe from this website and copy it here for my own note next time.


Ingredients
1 cauliflower
500 ml milk (or can be adjusted) - *we usually use full cream milk*
40-50 gr of butter
4 tbsp flour
150 gr grated cheese *I use jong belegen cheese*
salt and pepper to taste *I omit the salt part, that is why I used more cheese*
breadcrumb


Method
1. Cut the cauliflower florets
2. Boil the cauliflower florets - 1 boil is enough, since we will bake it in the oven
3. Drain the cauliflower and arrange it in the oven proof dish
4. In a pan, heat the butter, add milk and flour and stirr until the flour dissolved and the mixture becomes thicker. Turn off the heat
5. Add a part of the grated cheese and stirr
6. Pour the mixture onto the cauliflower, make sure it is at least 1/2 or 3/4 covered with the mixture
7. Cover the cauliflower with the rest of the grated cheese and followed it by the breadcrumb
8. Bake it for around 20 minutes, 180C or until the top is golden brown.


I did not take a picture when it is fresh from the oven.