Sweet Caramelised Onion Pizza with Garlic Bread

Cooking Adventure number #6 – Sweet Caramelised Onion Pizza with Garlic Bread

For my sixth main ingredient, my friend selected ‘cheese’. I researched and selected three recipes including cheese puffs, ‘best-ever’ macaroni cheese and caramelised onion pizza. All recipes look flavoursome however, I chose Caramelised Onion Pizza because this recipe was made on my favourite cooking competition, Masterchef , and I wanted to recreate a dish which was loved by the judges and voted one of the best recipes on Masterchef. Also, my mum knew how to make the pizza base and I wanted to learn how to make it. The ingredients for Caramelised Onion Pizza are:

Tomato Paste

Onion

Rosemary

Butter

Kalamata Olives

Feta

Brown Sugar

Plain Flour

Olive Oil

Salt

Yeast

Lukewarm Water (not shown)

White Sugar

It took me one hour in total to prepare all the ingredients. This included measuring, cutting and washing all ingredients for the presentation photo. With so few ingredients, I thought it would be pretty quick to do the preparation but I was wrong. The quantity made the preparation longer but I managed to finish it.

Home-made Pizza Dough

This is me mixing the yeast mixture. The mixture had yeast, lukewarm water (water that is slightly warm) and white sugar. The yeast smelt like vomit and I wondered if anyone has ate it alone. I had to mix the mixture for around two minutes but I lost track of time and kept mixing until my mother asked me if I’d finished mixing. Once finished, I placed the cling wrap onto the container and waited for the mixture to rise. The cling wrap was annoying me because it wouldn’t stick to the sides of the container and it took me so many times to get the right size and stick it as well. Finally my mother stuck the cling wrap onto the container in ONE SHOT!

After five minutes of waiting, the yeast mixture rose up to the lip of the bowl, until I took off the cling wrap and it sunk five centimetres, but it still looked like it rose quite a fair bit. It still smelt like someone had vomited in the yeast mixture but I hoped it didn’t smell like this at the end.

While I was waiting for the yeast mixture to rise, I made the other mixture which contained flour and salt which I had to mix up and then wait for the yeast mixture to finishing rising. Once the yeast mixture was finished, I poured it into the other mixture. Although the top of the yeast mixture was frothy, the bottom mixture was still runny but that’s what it’s supposed to be from the recipe’s description of the yeast mixture.

The recipe told me to use an electric mixer to mix all the yeast mixture and the other mixture together but it didn’t seem to work. Instead of the electric mixer mixing it together, it was not doing anything except making flour fly around the bowl.

This is a photo of the dough mixture mixed by the electric mixer. I wasn’t satisfied with the end result so I instead used the old –fashion mixing technique, kneading.

This is me kneading the unfinished dough. It was a lot harder to do because you had to put lots of power and force to make the dough nice and smooth. I believe it looked better than the electric mixer version.

Although kneading the dough took more time, the dough actually turned from being a lumpy and ‘crater’ filled dough into a lovely smooth dough which I imagined from the beginning of this recipe. It still had that awful smell of yeast in the dough but I still hoped the smell would be gone. I had flour all over my arms, hands and some small patches on my face!

After kneading the dough, I had to put it into bowls, put cling wrap over it and let it rest at the heater for one hour. Putting the cling wrap on wasn’t hard for some reason and it managed to stick to the bowl. While the dough was resting, I began caramelising the onion for the pizza.

This is me frying the onions before putting the brown sugar and rosemary into the frying pan. I was supposed to use olive oil for my frying but since I had lots of butter left over, I used butter instead. The recipe originally said to put thyme in but rosemary had a nicer scent and taste so I replaced thyme with rosemary.

Once I’d put in the brown sugar and rosemary, it smelled so beautiful and sweet; I could just eat these onions for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I had to keep stirring the onions around or else the sugar on the onions would burn and ruin the whole dish. The kitchen smelt like an Italian restaurant which was fantastic!

After one hour, I left the onions and rolled out the dough. It was puffy and it didn’t have the yeast odour anymore which I was extremely happy about. My first attempt at rolling out the dough was terrible, although the dough was flat, it turned into an abnormal shape. My second attempt turned out alright, it was still flat but this time it was an oval shaped base. My third attempt was perfect, flat and circular!

After rolling the dough, it was TOPPING TIME! The order of topping from base to top was:

1. Tomato Paste

2. Caramelised Onion

3. Kalamata Olives

4. Feta

Tomato Paste wasn’t on the recipe but pizza without paste is so plain so I bought tomato paste while I was shopping. At first, spreading the tomato paste was tricky; trying to get an even layer of paste around the base, but I managed to do it.

Next topping was the caramelised onion. I wanted to just eat the onion but thought maybe the onion would taste even better on the pizza, with other toppings. It was easy to put on the pizza; just drop it anywhere on the base.

Next topping was the kalamata olives. These olives were my favourite but for some reason they were more salty than normal but with the onion it would perhaps even the taste out. Since the olives were really big when I bought them, I had to cut them in half so they looked like the olives on pizzas from the shops.

The last topping was feta, my main ingredient. The feta was very hard when I bought it but since I left it out for around one hour, it softened and it was easier to break smaller pieces so I could spread the feta around the pizza. After finishing the topping part, I placed the pizzas into the oven for 30 minutes at 200 degrees centigrade.

Once the 30 minutes finished, the pizzas were golden and tasty. The feta had been cooked with a rustic edge to each piece, the olives had shrunk in size and the onions had been browned even more. I just couldn’t wait to dig my teeth into one slice. For the presentation photo, I had to cut the best pizza slice and I was terrible at cutting slices but it wasn’t hard at all after my mother showed me how to cut it: halves, quarters, eighths then sixteenths. I’d learnt so many things in just 2 hours.

When there’s pizza there has to be garlic bread. As a tradition, when my mum makes pizza she usually buys garlic bread as a side. Usually I would make it but since I didn’t have enough time, I just bought the cheapest garlic bread. They were cooked with the pizzas for 12 minutes and they came out just perfect: the garlic butter had melted and the bread was golden brown and crispy. Hopefully it tasted like home-made garlic bread. Cutting the bread was easier than cutting pizza slices but I had to cut two perfect slices of garlic bread for the presentation photo. Luckily, there were 12 great slices but only 2 were the best looking ones.

The finished product looked so professional and beautiful; it made me feel like a true Italian chef. I was the first person to take a bite of the pizza, it was scrumptious and the onion just melted in my mouth. With the salty taste of olives and feta, plus the sweet caramelised onion, the flavours were balanced out. The garlic bread was a stunner - it was crispy and the garlic butter melted in my mouth like the onions did. I wished it was home-cooked but it was delicious anyway. My mother didn’t like how the onion was caramelised and said it ruined the recipe but she doesn’t like sweet food so it wasn’t an insult. My dad really liked the pizza and garlic bread saying it was magnificent. My cousin and sister both liked the onion and garlic bread as well. The whole evening was tremendous; I have learnt so many things like how to make pizza bases and how to cut the pizza slices which will hopefully stay in my mind forever. I can’t wait for the seventh recipe!!!

This recipe was taken from the Herald Sun’s Masterchef liftout.

Q: What types of pizza(s) do you like and why?

Please place your comments in the comment section below.

Restaurant - Style Shepherd’s Pie with Wild Mushroom

Cooking Adventure number #5 – Restaurant - Style Shepherd’s Pie with Wild Mushroom

For my fifth main ingredient, my cousin selected ‘lamb’. I researched and selected three recipes including lamb chops with Ratatouille, Lamb Scotch Broth and Shepherd’s Pie with Wild Mushrooms. All recipes look very tasty and can be cooked in less than two hours however; I chose Shepherd’s Pie with Wild Mushroom because this recipe is one of my favourite winter warmers. My sister was scheduled to leave for her around the world trip; therefore this recipe was a tribute to her. The ingredients for the ‘Shepherd’s Pie with Wild Mushroom’ are:

Olive Oil

Onion

Carrot

Celery Stalks

Wild Mushrooms

Minced Lamb

Plain Flour

Beef Stock

Canned Tomatoes

Tomato Paste

Thyme

Bay Leaves

Salt

Pepper

Red Wine

Washed Potatoes

Unsalted Butter

Egg Yolk

Parmesan

Breadcrumbs

It took me in total 25 minutes to prepare all the ingredients. This included measuring, cutting and washing all ingredients into bowls for the presentation photo. It was a surprise how quickly it took me to prepare when there were a fair amount of ingredients in this recipe.

This is me frying the onion, carrot, celery and mushroom with olive oil. I decide to used a saucepan because it was going to be the ‘everything’ pot so I don’t have to transfer from a frying pan to another pot. The order of the frying was: 1. Onion, 2. Carrot, 3. Celery and 4. Mushroom. The onions were browning first which meant the frying was almost completely. While I was sautéing, my sister put pepper in for more flavour and it smelt fabulous.

Once the vegetables had finished frying, it was time for the lamb to be fried. At first, the lamb looked like a human brain. Once it was in the saucepan, I smashed into bits which looked like tiny broken brains. It wasn’t the most pleasant sight. The lamb was quickly browning and within 5 minutes, it had finished. After completely the lamb, I added flour in to make the lamb and its sauce thicker. My sister added breadcrumbs in the lamb mixture so it soaked all of the remaining fat which was not part of the recipe.

Once the lamb had finished frying, I added in the vegetables and sautéed the lamb and vegetable for a little bit before the beef stock was put in. The aroma of beef and vegetable was just gorgeous but I couldn’t wait for the beef stock to come around.

The magic potion is here! Well actually it’s just beef stock but it made the vegetables and lamb smelt so amazing. This photo was taken by my cousin. After 20 shots of me pouring the stock in, this was the best one which was the 15^th shot.

Once the beef stock was ready and the vegetable and lamb had been sautéed and been soaked in the stock. I reduced to low heat and waited for approximately 15 minutes for the lamb and vegetable to soak the stock in.

Since the beef stock/vegetables/lamb was simmering for 15 minutes, I started on the mash potatoes. The recipe told me to use a certain type of potato to use for mash but since my sister couldn’t find the type of potato the recipe wanted, she just bought washed potatoes. At the beginning of the cooking session, I boiled the potatoes so they can soften for the mash. Luckily when the beef stock was simmering, the potatoes were finished boiling so I could start mashing immediately. The mash was very easy because the softness of the potatoes. The mash was tasteless but once my sister put in milk, butter and breadcrumbs; it was splendid!

After 15 minutes, the stock had been soaked up by the vegetables and lamb; it was placed in 6 ramekins my sister used one for each shepherd’s pie. Once they were filled to a certain point, my sister piped the mash potato on top of the meat filling. My sister loved piping things as decoration and since it was the last time she will be cooking with me, I let her pipe. My cousin’s photography skills really showed in this photo.  My cousin’s sister was putting pastry on 3 ramekins and my sister put potato on 3 ramekins. Once everyone had finished what they were doing, I put all 6 ramekins in the oven for 30 minutes.

The finished product looked like a professional dish because of the puff brown pastry and the rustic potato on the pie. Although when my sister was taking the pies out from the oven, the potato pies hit the top of the oven and made it sink a little bit. Luckily, there was one good potato pie which didn’t hit the top. It was my idea to put the knife and fork in to look more professional. I was dying to eat my shepherd’s pie but dinner hadn’t started yet so I had to wait.

This photo is my sister’s special shepherd pie which had her initials because this recipe was the last time was cooking with me. She was leaving to her “Around The World” trip with her fiancée for seven months.  My whole family thought this was the best recipe so far because it tasted so exquisite; they could eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. One cousin is a fussy eater; however she managed to finish the whole ramekin which was an extremely good compliment. I thought it tasted pretty good better than previous shepherd’s pie which tasted really bad. The pastry was soft and warm and the meat filling was perfect. I will call this my best recipe so far and I can’t wait for my sixth recipe!!!

This recipe was taken from GW Living Magazine (Good Weekend)

Q: When was the last time you had a tasty shepherd’s pie (pastry or potato)?

Please comment your answers below

Melting Soft-Centred Chocolate Pudding

Cooking Adventure number #4 – Melting Soft-Centred Chocolate Pudding

For my fourth main ingredient, my friend selected ‘milk chocolate’. I researched and selected four recipes including chocolate and hazelnut roulade, chocolate mousse cake, chocolate mousse and soft-centred chocolate pudding. All the recipes look mouth-watering and they were not time-consuming. I chose soft-centred chocolate pudding because it is similar to the one that appeared in Masterchef recently. The ingredients for the ‘melting soft-centred chocolate pudding’ are:

Milk Chocolate

Plain Flour

Caster Sugar

Butter

Eggs

Raspberries

Vanilla Ice-cream

It took me in total 20 minutes to prepare all the ingredients. This included measuring, cutting and washing all ingredients into bowls for the presentation photo. I was pleasantly amazed how quick it took me to prepare all the ingredients. My duration for preparation has improved dramatically since the first time I started.

This is a picture of me melting the milk chocolate and the butter. It took for the butter and chocolate to mix because I used cold water instead of boiling water. The smell of melting chocolate and butter was divine.

Once the chocolate and butter melted, I left it aside to cool down. This picture is me mixing the eggs, flour and sugar into a bowl. It was powdery at first but when I put some elbow grease into my mixing; it became a smooth thick mixture that I was aiming for.

This picture is me with the melted and cooled down chocolate. It smelt amazing and the taste of rich chocolate with a pinch of butter in it. It had a smooth consistence and it was perfect.

This picture is me mixing the melted chocolate into the egg mixture. The reason why the melted chocolate had to be cooled down because if I poured the ‘ready off the stove’ chocolate, it would cook the egg which I did not want. The melted chocolate was blending in the mixture nicely. It was flawless and the smell was amazing.

After mixing the mixture, I placed it into ramekins. It was time consuming & difficult as the mixture was very sticky! After 15 minutes, the first ramekin was filled to the top and it was frustrating putting the mixture into 6 other ramekins (3 large and 3 small).

I love raspberries but I would love them more if they weren’t frozen from a packet. The raspberries were so sour and I could taste frost on them which was not tasty. This photo was my favourite one from his collection of raspberries photos.

This is one of the puddings that were chosen for presentation. My cousin’s photography skills showed every crack and every detail of the pudding. These puddings took 25 minutes but my sister and I decided to cook them for 30 minutes.  It was a little bit burnt but still scrumptious!

I decided to not to do a presentation photo because this stunned me. This photo is me putting raspberries and icing sugar on the two puddings; one in a ramekin and one outside the ramekin. I was really nervous whether if the centre of the pudding was going to pour out when I cut the pudding in half. 

Thankfully it was gooey in the centre and it was nice and warm, perfect for the winter night. I only made four puddings. My parents enjoyed eating the ice-cream more than the pudding because they don’t like eating desserts. I really liked the gooey centre and the raspberries because it was a combination between the sour raspberries and the sweet chocolate-centre. My sister didn’t enjoy it because she felt as though she was eating unfinished cake. She loved the raspberries with the pudding because of its sweet and sour combination. It was quick dish but it was appetizing in the end.

This recipe was taken from Bill Granger’s “Bills Open Kitchen’

Q: Do you like chocolate pudding and if no, why?

Please place your answers in the comment section below

Crispy Vietnamese Spring Rolls

Cooking adventure number #3 – Crispy Vietnamese Spring Rolls

For my third main ingredient my sister selected ‘chicken’. I researched and selected three recipes including chicken bites, chicken and vegetable risotto and Vietnamese spring rolls. All recipes look delicious and all the recipes seemed easy to make however, I chose Vietnamese spring rolls because this recipe is a part of my culture and one of my favourite dishes. I decided to not use the website’s version of spring rolls and use my mum’s she has cooked spring rolls for parties, dinners and for a treat and I know they are magnificent so I want to know how to cook like my mum. The ingredients for the ‘crispy spring rolls’ are:

Spring roll pastry

Carrots

Egg Whites

Potatoes

Bean Vermicelli

Onion

Salt

Pepper

Sugar

Chicken Mince

Home – made chicken mince

Before I started preparing of the ingredients, I decided to make my own chicken mince. Why when I buy it ready made from the butchers? From the butchers, it’s hard to know which part of the chicken was used to make the chicken mince and also how much fat has been added to the chicken mince. By making my own chicken mince, I knew exactly which part of the chicken I was using and how much fat was added. The answer – zero fat! 

I decided to use chicken drumsticks with skin-off. I used this part this part as the drumstick is generally tastier as it is not the leanest part of the chicken and retains flavours really well. If you wanted a healthier option, it is best to use chicken breast because it is low in fat and it’s very lean. 

I had to remove the skin and also de-bone the chicken drumsticks. These are the skinless chicken drumsticks which were peeled. It looks like chicken breast but there’s a bone at the end of each chicken. 

This is me deboning the chicken drumsticks. Before I started separating the meat and the bone, I removed the veins and arteries from the chicken because they make me sick when I cut them open. Since my cousin wasn’t here yet, my sister took the photo which still looked good but not like some photos from my first two cooking adventure.

These are the chicken meat ready for the last step in making chicken mince; mincing.

These are the bones from the chicken drumsticks. Instead of throwing them in the bin, I decided to keep these so my mum can make a soup stock with the bones. The veins/arteries & skin were thrown out.

This is my sister mincing the chicken meat. My sister and I decided to use the food processor rather than the meat mincer because we didn’t know how to use it and it’s a long process of setting the machine up and cleaning it when use finish using it. I was too nervous of using the food processor so my sister took over my position and I was the video recording person.  My sister had to ‘process’ the chicken three times to make sure every piece was minced to the right consistence. This is the video of how the chicken was minced or ‘processed’ for the very first time.

After 45 mins of making our own chicken mince, it actually looked better than the butchers’ chicken mince although it wasn’t actually minced in the mincer. There were some veins left in the chicken but luckily, it didn’t burst open and I removed it from the mince. Buying the ready-made mince was $7 at the butcher and buying 1kg of drumsticks was $5 so we saved $2. Although it was a bit more effort than I expected, I was really pleased that we made our own chicken mince.

Once we finished making the mince, my cousin came home from work and started taking brilliant photos like this one of me putting in onion into the mince. The onion had to be finely diced and then all the juices of the onion ringed out. This is so the spring rolls didn’t end up soggy once they have been fried. The aroma of onion and mince was amazing!!!

Once I mixed the onion into the mince, I put in salt, sugar, pepper, carrot, potatoes and bean vermicelli into the mince. The carrot took forever to prepare for the mince, first I had to peel the skin of 4 carrots, then grating them which made my arm hurt and then ‘wringing’ the grated carrot so the water can drip out of the carrots. My sister noticed that the ingredients weren’t ‘blending’ into the mince so she told to use my hands more to mix the mince and ingredients. Although it’s messy I think the best way of mixing these ingredients is to use your hands rather than a wooden spoon.

After a few minutes of mixing the mince, the filling of the spring rolls was done; it was nice and even, no lumps and it was just what I imagined it to be like.

Making the spring rolls had to have mum’s technique of using triangles and squares: triangles are the filling’s pastry and the squares are the second layer of filling pastry. The triangle and squares each needed to have ten sheets (the packet had thirty sheets) and folded into its shape.

Once the pastries have been folded, it was then cut and peeled. It was a long process but once I stopped looking at my watch, time flew by and I finished really quickly.

When I was younger, seeing my mum make spring rolls look easy and I didn’t understand why she would always tired when all she would do is put the filling on the triangle, roll it, put in on the square then roll it and just before she finished rolling, she would put egg whites on the end and it would stick. Now, looks can be deceiving; depending how much filling was important; too much and it will not roll probably and too little and it will look like you just rolled pastry. My first attempt had too much filling and exploded (I couldn’t wrap the spring roll neatly) but I should learnt to use only ¾ of a teaspoon. Placing the filling roll onto the square was easy but the way I rolled made my mum very agitated. She said to stop ¼ of the way, fold the right side then left and roll it. It was difficult but I learnt a lot of things for that process and I was tired after making the rolls. I then used the egg white to seal the spring roll.

The springs rolls being stacked the way my mum like it. My cousin’s photography skills really showed in this photo. My cousin’s sister, mum and I made 100 springs rolls altogether. If we don’t use the spring rolls, mum puts them into sandwich bags and freezes them for the next time we eat spring rolls.

Next step was to fry the spring roll. The spring rolls are best to be fried in vegetable or canola oil. My mum told me that olive oil is too fragrant to fry spring rolls.

My dad taught me a trick in testing if the oil was hot enough for the spring rolls . This trick was taught from a local fish and chip shop where the owner used a small amount of rice noodles and dropped it in the oil. If the rice noodle cooked and rose to the top quickly, the oil is hot and ready to go. I like using large pieces of noodle because the shapes the noodles create are so interesting. The taste of fried noodles is plain but it looks like rice crackers. The video shows the progress in testing the oil.

These are the very first batch of spring rolls that are about to be fried in the hot oil. Once the spring rolls were in the fryer, oil started to splatter on the stove, on the floor and on my arm. It burned for a few seconds.

The smell of oil and spring roll being fried was going around the kitchen at the time when this photo was taken. My mum taught me a technique in frying the best spring rolls. Her method of explaining was difficult so I’ve put in a simpler way:

Step 1: When the spring rolls are placed in the fryer, put heat to high.

Step 2: When the ends of the spring rolls turn golden brown, put heat to medium.

Step 3: When the spring rolls are between light yellow to golden brown, take all springs rolls out (remember, the spring rolls are still cooking because of the oil still soaked in)

This was the very first one I took out of the deep fryer and it looked amazing!!! My cousin’s photography made the photo look like a professional. I used the chopstick method which took longer to take out each spring roll which meant the spring rolls were turning browner by the minute until my mum gave me a strainer which grabbed every single spring roll out of the deep fryer in one shot.

To plate up, I washed some fresh iceberg lettuce and Vietnamese mint, which is how they serve spring rolls at Vietnamese restaurants. It took around 15 minutes to plate up with the sweet chilli sauce. Traditionally, spring rolls is served with dipping fish sauce however we had none left at home and used  sweet chilli sauce as a replacement. Overall it was a delicious dish; the aim was to make my mum satisfied with the spring rolls. The ones she ate were a little bit overcooked because of the chopstick method but she liked it. I learnt a lot of techniques in making spring rolls so I’ll use those skills my mum taught me when I make more spring rolls for parties or for dinner with my mum. I can’t wait for the next recipe because this is going to be FUN!!!

This recipe was taken from my mum’s knowledge

Q: If you had chicken as your main ingredient, what would you make?

Answer this question in the comments section.