BLACK 'N WHITE SESAME SEED CRISPS

What do people do when they're hungry?

They come down the stairs with dangling arms, purposeful eyes and an expectant look. Then they make that penultimate sign for hunger. One palm flat over abs, moving in a circle. Over the spot within which that bottomless receptacle for food resides. That and a dopey smile.

Another might stomp down and announce his hunger. Sometimes with a guilty look.

All this can and may take place within 1 hour of a heavy meal.

What do I do? I pretend not to see all of this. I stare straight ahead into the computer screen and make a wish. A wish that I could climb into that other world to crouch and hide until all of this ferocious hunger subsides.


Another trick to do would be to pick at my brains and pull something out.

If I was lucky it would be edible, low in fat, simple, healthy, and as much as possible baked not fried, crisp, sugar free yet acceptable to these desperate creatures that I amass in my home.


So it was under all that duress that I came up with these sesame seed crisps. And to make it look a little funky (whatever that means) I made them black and white.

Sometimes miracles do happen.



These crisps were made from a tortilla recipe I had posted a while back. I made the tortillas as per the recipe. Then I snipped each tortilla up into triangles, getting 12 triangular pieces from each tortilla.

I placed them on a baking sheet in one layer, brushed them with egg white and sprinkled black and then white sesame seeds over them. I pushed them into the oven and baked them until they turned a light golden brown and were as crisp and brittle as dried bones.

Really great with the chutney below or any other dipping that you can conjure up.

This is open to endless possible combinations of toppings or seasonings. You could sprinkle salt and cayenne pepper on them or cinnamon and sugar or some cajun spice or even curry powder.

Run wild run free. Thats what I say.


The recipe........................makes 8 tortillas and 96 sesame seed crisps....

2 cups plain flour or whole wheat, sifted
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 T butter, softened
1/2 cup warm water

I egg, white only

some black and white sesame seeds

Rb in the butter into flour until like very fine breadcrumbs. Add warm water and stir with a fork to bring the dough together and hten use your fingers to knead until it becomes a smooth dough.

Divide into 8 pieces and let the dough rest covered with a clean dish cloth for at lest 10 to 15 minutes.

Once rested, take 1 piece and roll out into a ver very thin circle with a rolling pin. The circle should be about 8 - 9 inches in diameter. Cook the tortillas in a lightly oiled pan over a medium heat until light brown spots appear and the dough is cooked. Finish off all the 8 pieces of dough in this way.

Then take each piece and cut into half and then quarters and then cut each quarter into 3 pieces. Place in one layer on an ungreased and unlined baking tray.

Break and egg, and taking only the white, whisk teh egg white lightly to loosen it up. Using a brush, brush each triangle with egg white and then sprinkle the pieces with sesame seed, black and white or black OR white. Your choice.

Bake 10 to 15 minutes in 160 C oven. It doesnt take very long to brown so check after 5 minutes just in case your oven is too hot. They should be really nice and crisp!

Enjoy with a chutney or a spicy peanut butter dip or a babaganoush.

PINEAPPLE AND MANGO CHUTNEY

The only time I would encounter a chutney as a young girl was when we attended a wedding. And most of the time it would be a pineapple chutney.

Another kind of preserve that we have is called acar (pronounced ah-char). It is very similar to a chutney but it has a bigger proportion of vegetables to fruits. The sauce is made using more oil. Its a little sour and very spicy. Usually it is made up of cucumbers, julienned carrots, whole preserved limes, shallots, garlic cloves, whole bird chillies and sesame seeds or crushed peanuts.



And for the past 10 years or so we have seen the addition of little pieces of dried, salted fish. It became the the avant-garde ingredient for acar and added that oh-where-have-you-been-all-my-life oomph. And an acar without salted fish just wouldn't be right nowadays.

Needless to say acar is the preferred vegetable preserve over chutney in Malaysia simply because it is spicy rather than sweet.


However, I am making a chutney now because I was looking for an accompaniment that was on the sweet side for some black and white sesame seed crisps that I made recently. The recipe for the crisps will follow in my next post.


I had made some lovely Baba Ganoush as a dip at first but it lacked that crazy South East Asian spice factor that is a pre-requisite for my idiosyncratic biological make up.


And chutney seemed perfect because it is 'jammy' in texture, the fruits soft, the sauce thick and syrupy and is a little sweet, almost like a delicious jam. But with that wicked spicy edge to it. A perfect dip for those crunchy sesame seed crisps.

Besides I also get to use those lovely jars that I had bought ages ago but have had no occasion to use quite yet. Until now that is.



The recipe.................

1 small pineapple, peeled and cubed
3 medium mangoes slightly underipe, peeled and cubed
5 whole garlic cloves, peeled
1 white onion, diced
1 inch ginger, grated finely
1 green chillie, cut into chunks
1 sweet red pepper, diced largish pieces
some raisins (optional)
2 T curry powder or less if you prefer mixed with some water into a slurry
1/2 cup pineapple vinegar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 T of mustard seeds
The zest and juice of 1 lemon (optional)

2 T cooking oil

Heat oil in a medium pan until hot but not smoking. Saute the diced onions and garlic and ginger and mustard seeds until fragrant. Pour in the curry powder slurry and stir to avoid sticking to the bottom of the pan. Saute for about 6 minutes or more until the curry spice turns a darker shade is cooked well and fragrant.

Throw in the fruits, chillies, peppers, raisins and stir to mix well. Add the cider vinegar and brown sugar and mix again.

Let the mixture simmer and allow the the sauce to reduce to a thick and syrupy consistency. Add salt, the lemon zest and juice towards the end and cook a little while more to incorporate. Taste and adjust.

Leave to cool completely before storing.

This chutney is delicious eaten with the sesame crisps that I will be showing in my next post soon as a snack or a cocktail or as an appetizer. YUM...

CURRY PUFFS

When my children thought these puffs were deep fried it was like little bubbles of pleasure had burst inside of me. I knew I had hit the jackpot.

Traditionally Malay curry puffs are deep fried to acquire a crispy crust to complement the spicy curry filling of meat and potatoes inside. But finally, I have conjured up the perfect curry puff crust....that is, baked and not fried, for a healthier version.

Yet they were crisp, crusty, crunchy and flaky and stayed that way for hours. Comparable and as delicious as the traditionally deep fried ones.


I had used the short crust pastry dough for the Nori Nibbles in my previous post but to which I added an extra ounce of butter which proved to be a very good move because it simply made the pastry that much crustier.

Since I also wanted the pastry to take the form of a spiral pastry dough which seems to be the rage these days in Malaysian curry puff world I rolled out the dough into a rough rectangle that was about 1/4 inch thick.

Then, just in the nick of time, I remembered Jamie Oliver's pastry for his Portuguese Egg Tarts. So I decided to sprinkle some cinnamon powder over the pastry rectangle before rolling it up.

That little activity stimulated me and I thought chillie powder would be good too so I reached for some and sprinkled that on which in turn got me more animated that I thought cumin would be even better so I sprinkled that on as well.

With that, I may have perfected the Art of Indecisiveness.


Verdict : None of the spices stood out in flavour. I should have stuck to one spice and sprinkled a substantial amount rather than a little of each. Preferred choice : cinnamon. Or curry powder?

No matter. The curry puffs were a hit anyway.

And although they were not as pretty as I would have liked them to be they passed the bill in this house.

PS : I had also sprinkled some grated cheddar cheese over the filling before I folded the pastry over to seal. That added a nice cheesy twist.

The recipe..............................

For the filling...............

200 gm beef fillet or chicken tenders, minced or cut into very thin and tiny pieces
2 medium potatoes or 1 medium potato and 1 small sweet potato, skinned and diced small
1 white onion, diced finely
2 pips garlic, (optional)
2 T curry powder plus 1/4 cup of water and mixed to a paste
1/4 - 1/2 cup water or chicken stock
1 T cornflour mixed with a little water
salt

Some grated cheddar cheese (optional)

4 T cooking oil



Heat the oil in a pan and saute the onions, garlic until fragrant. Add the curry powder paste and continue to saute until the curry paste turns darker and is cooked through.

Add in the diced potatoes and the meat and the chicken stock or water, bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer until the potatoes are tender and the meat done. Add salt to taste. Finally thicken with cornflour.

Ideally the mixture should be between dry and ever so slightly saucy. Thick-ish really.

Let the cooked filling cool completely before using.

The pastry......................

8 oz plain flour
5 oz butter, frozen block of it
5-6 T of ice cold water

Sift flour into a medium bowl, Grate the frozen butter over the flour. Using your finger tips mix the flour and butter so that the curls of butter are well coated and are distributed evenly throughout.

Sprinkle about 5 or 6 tablespoons of cold water over the flour-butter mix and using a fork at first stir to bring the dough together. If the dough seems a little too dry add another tablespoon of cold water and mix again. When the dough looks moist enough to cling together, use your fingers to gather and pat and squeeze the dough into a squarish shape very lightly.

*Excessive handling will make the dough tough and the butter will melt.

Wrap the dough in cling film and place in the freezer for 15v minutes or so until it firms up but not too hard sothat you can still roll it out.

*It is important that the butter remains in visible pieces because this is what will make the pastry puff, be crunchy and ever so flaky. The batter forms pockets as the pastry bakes and as it melts and the steam from the melting butter pushes up the dough forming layers making the resulting pastry puffy and flaky.

Take the dough out from the freezer and flour a board. Place the dough on top and roll out the dough until it forms a rough rectangle that is about between 1/4 inch thick. (Sorry that I did not measure the size)

You may make the edges neat by trimming them. I didn't because I did not want to waste any pastry.

Sprinkle some cinnamon/cumin/chillie powder or cayenne pepper generously over the rectangle of dough. Roll up the dough tightly from one end until it becomes a log. Place in the freezer again to firm up if your kitchen is warm like mine.

Constructing the curry puffs...............

Take out from the freezer and slice a few slices at a time (perhaps at most 4, if your kitchen is warm). The slices should be about but not quite 1 cm thick. Roll out one slice until it becomes a bigger circle about 3 inches in diameter. You will be able to see a spiral of dark spice in the slice of dough. Put the filling in the centre using a small teaspoon, add some grated cheddar dheese if you like then fold the pastry circle over the filling and crimp to seal with your fingers, Malaysian style, or press with a fork. Finish the rest of the pastry in the same way. You will get about 20 - 25 curry puffs. While you are doing a few slices refrigerate the rest.

Bake the curry puffs in a preheated oven at 170 C for s5 - 30 minutes until teh curry puffs ar alight golden brown. Serve warm or cold. Enjoy!

SEAWEED STICKS 'N NORI NIBBLES

These nibbles were good, crispy and fun to make (save the washing up) and I'm glad that my children liked them. Twisted and rolled with seaweed caught in between it makes a nice, dainty savoury nibble. A light snack. Very good to serve with a glass of ice cold lemon tea or with a mug of Nescafe thickened with lots of milk.

I made them using a short crust pastry recipe. But instead of rubbing the butter in until they resembled fine breadcrumbs I grated a block of frozen butter over a bowl of sifted flour so that they gathered into a pile of pretty, lush and golden curls like a little girl's eyelashes. I mixed them up very, very lightly with my finger tips so that each sumptuous golden lash was lightly coated with flour and then sprinkled 5 to 6 tablespoons of ice cold water into the mix.


I mixed it with a fork and then used my fingers to bring the dough together. NO KNEADING AT ALL. You don't want the butter and flour blending in smoothly. All that was needed were some gentle squeezes and a few pats, I then wrapped the dough in cling film and placed it in the freezer for a few minutes to chill and firm up.


Those flaky curls of butter did so much to give this pastry a crisp and layer-y effect that it almost seemed like a rough puff pastry.

I used seaweed as a flavouring because I have been having the Nori seaweed laying around for ages. And of course because I lOVE Nori.


The recipe...................



8 oz plain flour, sifte
4 oz frozen block of butter, salted
5-6 T of ice cold water

4 sheets of Nori seaweed
1 egg, beaten salt n pepper

Place the sifted flour into a medium bowl. Grate the frozen butter over the flour. With your finger tips gather the flour and butter very lightly until the butter flakes are evenly covered in flour. Sprinkle the ice cold water over the flour butter mix and using a fork at first stir to bring the dough together.

Then using your fingers WITHOUT KNEADING gather the dough and pat it into a firm ball. Shape into a square. Wrap in cling film and place in the freezer for about 10 minutes until the dough is a little firmer.

Divide the dough into quarters. Take one quarter, keeping the rest in the freezer again.

Roll out the portion of dough until quite thin or very slightly larger than the nori sheet. Make sure it is squarish like the Nori sheet. Brush the rolled out dough with the beaten egg, sprinkle with salt and pepper and place the seaweed sheet over it. Brush he seaweed sheet with beaten egg and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

At this point you might have decided to make sticks or spirals.

If making sticks : Just fold the pastry lined seaweed into half lengthwise. Press down lightly with a rolling pin just to ensure that the pastry sticks to the seaweed. Cut with a pizza cutter or with a pair of scissors into 10 strips. Twist each stick a little if you wish. Do the same with the rest of the portions of pastry. You will get 40 sticks/strips in all.


If making spirals : Instead off folding the pastry over you roll up the pastry into a log. You then place the roll into the freezer until it is quite hard but not rock hard. Take it out and slice into discs about 1/4 inch thick. I think you would be able to get about 15 to 20 discs from each log. I forget exactly.


Place the sticks or discs about 1/2 inch apart and bake in a preheated oven at 170 C for about 20-25 minutes until golden brown and crisp. Store in an airtight container or serve immediately.