High Fidelity

I like squeezing my orange juice

Orange juice, originally uploaded by yongtze.

"We demand a level of convenience that is immodest.... We have lost familiarity with how things were made and the association of effort with reward" - Camilla Plum

How you like your omelette?

I'm just wondering how people like their omelettes? Fully cooked and slightly browned on one side? Or like French omelettes - moist, creamy inside?

Hard-boiled egg, cucumber, anchovy, and hand-made mayonnaise sandwich

egg, cucumber, anchovy, and hand-made mayonnaise sandwich, originally uploaded by yongtze.

I like the taste and texture of egg yolk, the freshness and crunch of cucumber, and savoury and oiliness of anchovy.

And I like to make my own mayonnaise with free range egg yolk, whole grain mustard, peanut oil, lemon juice, white wine vinegar.

So I make this simple sandwich for this lazy Saturday brunch with the leftover bread on the table.

Mayonnaise (makes 300ml):
- 2 egg yolks
- 1 teaspoon white wine vinegar
- 1 teaspoon whole grain mustard
- salt and white pepper
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- 300ml peanut oil

Whisk the egg yolks with white wine vinegar, mustard for about 1 minute. While whisking constantly, slowly add in peanut oil, droplet by droplet until the oil has been well absorbed. Then increase to teaspoon by teaspoon until well absorbed. Don't stop whisking until all the oil has been added. Season with salt, white pepper, and lemon juice. Will keep for about 1 week in the fridge.

For the sandwich (serve 1):
- 2 hard-boil eggs
- half cup chopped cucumbers
- 4 anchovies preserved in oil
- 1 and half tablespoons hand-made mayonnaise
- 3 slices of bread, toasted

Mix all the ingredients (except the bread) and spread on the bread as shown in the picture.

I can feel the heat of the summer already, sweating in my living room now.

English milk loaf

Milk loaf, originally uploaded by yongtze..

I have been baking quite a lot recently. This English milk loaf recipe is from a book called "The Handmade Loaf" by Dan Lepard, which I borrowed from the City library on Flinders Lane.

It is wonderfully soft inside and slightly tough outside. The strong tough crumb, as the author said, is good at "withstanding the rigours of a child's schoolbag, or a cheese sandwich that can survive in a jogger's backpack".

The recipe calls for fresh yeast but I don't have any so I used dry active yeast instead. As recommended by the book, to replace the fresh yeast with dry active yeast: Take 25% of the liquid from the recipe and heat it to about 40 degree Celsius. Whisk in the dry yeast (half the weigh given for fresh yeast), together with 2-3 tablespoons of flour from the total amount. Leave this for 20 minutes, then use in the recipe as if using fresh yeast

I have also converted some measurements from weight to cups/measure spoons in case you don't have a kitchen scale at home. However, for baking, it's highly recommended to measure the ingredients by weight as it is more precise than using volume.

- 1 1/2 teaspoons fresh yeast, crumbled
- 350ml whole milk
- 20g golden or maple syrup (about 3 teaspoons)
- 500g flour, preferably those with high gluten content (about 3 3/4 cups)
- 1 1/4 teaspoons salt
- 25g warm melted unsalted butter

1. In a large bowl, whisk the yeast with the milk and syrup. Add flour and salt, and squeeze the lot together with your hands until you have a soft sticky dough and the flour and liquid have combined well. Pour over the warm melted butter and mix well with the dough.

2. Cover the bowl and leave for 10 minutes.

3. Rub 1 teaspoon of olive oil on the work-surface and knead the dough for a quick 10 seconds, ending with the dough in a smooth round ball. Wipe the bowl clean and rub with 1 teaspoon olive oil, return the dough to it, cover and leave for 10 minutes. Repeat this light kneading twice more, at 10 minutes intervals, then leave the dough for 30 minutes.

4. Grease and flour a loaf tin. Divide the dough into two equal pieces and shape each into a ball. Drop them side-by-side intro the prepared tin, cover with a cloth, and leave to rise for about 1 1/2 hours, or until almost doubled in height. (A good place for rising: Turn on the oven for about 2 minutes, and turn it off. It should be just warm enough for a good rise)

5. Preheat the oven to 210 degree Celsius. Brush the top of the loaf with a little milk, and bake for 15 minutes, then lower the heat to 180 degree Celsius and bake for a further 25-30 minutes, or until the top of the loaf is a shiny dark brown. Remove from the tin, and leave to cool on a wire rack.

Easiest breakfast: oat with honey and roasted almond

Easiest breakfast: oat with honey and roasted almond, originally uploaded by yongtze.

I'm starting to eat oat for breakfast for all the obvious health reasons like high in fibre, rich in beta-glucan that helps lower cholesterol re-absorption, which is good for the heart.

However, it's not just for the good health. I found that I actually like it. It's warm and creamy - I like eating warm food in the morning. And you can add anything you like with it, like roasted almond here.

For best taste, roast the almond yourself. Get raw almond from the market, just roast it with a skillet over high heat for a few minutes until you can smell the fragrance. Simple but really nice.

Omelette with chive on toast

Omelette with chive, originally uploaded by yongtze.

Fast breakfast for weekday -  Take less than 2 minutes! :)

Cheese omelette on toast, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, and red onion salad with cucumber flavoured vinaigrette

Cheese omelette on toast, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, and red onion salad with cucumber flavoured vinaigrette, originally uploaded by yongtze.

This was saturday breakfast. To accompany the cheese omelette, I made a little salad.

For the dressing:

Serve 1.

Just peel half of a cucumber, 2-3 cherry tomatoes cut in half, quarter of red onion thinly sliced. Mix together. Serve with dressing.

Dressing:
- 1/2 teaspoon white wine vinegar
- 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
- 1/4 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
- salt and pepper to taste
- juice from a quarter of cucumber
- 2 teaspoon olive oil

Mix vinegars and lemon juice, cucumber juice and salt. Slowly drop in olive oil and blend vigorously. Some pepper to taste. Pour the mixture into a screw-top jar and shake to blend the mixture well.

The cucumber and cucumber juice give a very nice freshness to the salad. I like it, even in winter.

Scrambled eggs on toast, mushroom and tomato

Breakfast, originally uploaded by yongtze.

This is a Gordon Ramsay's recipe. I like the simplicity of cooking the whole mushroom and tomatoes with low heat slowly without turning them.

Scrambled eggs, everyone likes scrambled eggs. It is very easy to prepare but people tend to overcook it or just don't get the right consistency they want.

- Beat the eggs into a saucepan, together with cold butter.
- Cook the eggs over moderately low heat.
- Don't stop stirring, you can stir it with either a rubber spatula or a wooden spoon. Just don't stop stirring.
- Keep the saucepan on and off the heat, say, 5 seconds on the heat and 5 seconds off the heat, and on the heat again. WHY? The saucepan will retain the heat and the temperature keep rising as you heat it. So if you keep heating it, the temperature will rise too much and the eggs will cook so quickly that you won't get the right creamy consistency you want.
- As soon as they are of the right consistency, remove from the heat completely. Stir in some cream to cool down and stop the cooking process.
- Season with salt and pepper. Fold in either some chives, spring onion, parsley, or smoke salmon or whichever you see fit.