Sour Cherry Preserve

 

 

 

 

Is June, it's time to pick sour cherry from the farm .  I've been lucky enough to find this family farm 1 hour drive distance from our home - in a matter of week, sour cherry will be gone especially only 1 place near by has this tree on their farm.

 

 

 

We were serious cherry picker, you know.  Within 2 hours we  picked so many cherries, blueberries also (surprise surprise) mulberries to bring home , as I always have plan on my head what should I do with this beauty!  Torshi and Moraba are the option, since our own Iranian - Indonesian family loves eat fresh bread with moraba.

 

Here is the simple recipe I'd like to share, hope you are lucky enough to get sour cherry on your hand otherwise regular cherry will work fine to, only reduce of sugar .

 

 

Sour Cherries Preserve - Moraba-ye- Albaloo

Ingredients :

11/2 lbs sour cherry

1 cup sugar

 

1 tbsp. rose water (optional)

 

Directions :

Wash, dry and remove pits from sour cherries

Add sugar to sour cherries and let them sit there for a couple of hours.

Place fruit and juices in a pot and bring to a simmer. Remove extra foam. Simmer for about an hour until the juices turn into syrup. Sometimes sour cherries have a lot of juice. You have two options if you are left with too much syrup. One option is to remove the actual fruit from the pot and reduce the remaining syrup. The other option is to save the syrup and and add ice and water for refreshing drink during hot summer day - all natural ingredients l !!

 

　

 

Pickled Sour Cherries - Torshi-ye-Albaloo

Ingredients :

1 lbs sour cherry

400ml white vinegar

2 tsp salt

100 gr sugar

2 fresh thyme sprigs

10 whole peppercorns

 

Directions :

wash and sort through the cherry carefully, discarding the leaves and trimming the stalk .

Place the vinegar and generous about 200ml water in a pan, add salt bring to boil than add rhe sugar, turn off the heat down , simmer about 10 minutes until sugar dissolve

Divide the cherries , thyme, between sterilized jar. Pour the pickling liquid over the top, allow to coll and seal. Allow at least 1 week before you trying your torshi (honestly this is the hard part)

Traditional Napa Cabbage Kimchi (Vegetarian Type)

I love making pickles, any kind..  and this is a very first time I make kimchi (Korean Style Pickle) . Actually is easy to just visit Korean Store near by and get one, but cooking is in my DNA - I see many videos and recipes before I make my own kimchi.  The recipe comes from Maangchi, owner of Korean cooking website.

I slightly copy the recipe with a little adjustment since I choose to make vegan style, which I skip using squid or shrimp - anyway, please visit her youtube video or her website to get a clear tutorial HERE

This is a big batch recipe, I just make a half portion of recipe since I want to find out if this recipe work or not, which no surprise work very well.

Traditional Napa Cabbage Kimchi (Vegetarian Style)
Recipe : Maangchi

Ingredients :

Makes about 8 pounds (3.6 kg) of Kimchi
For salting cabbage:

6 pounds napa cabbage (3 to 4 heads of medium napa cabbage)

½ cup Kosher salt

For making porridge:

2 cups water

2 tablespoons sweet rice flour (glutinous rice flour)

2 tablespoons brown sugar

Vegetables:

2 cups radish matchsticks

1 cup carrot matchsticks

7 to 8 green onions, chopped

1 cup chopped asian chives (substitute with 3 green onions, chopped)

Seasonings and spices:

½ cup garlic cloves (24 garlic cloves), minced

2 teaspoon ginger, minced

1 medium onion, minced

½ cup fish sauce

2 cups hot pepper flakes

Directions

Prepare and salt the cabbage:

If the cabbage cores stick out too much, trim them off.

To split a cabbage in half without shredding the densely packed leaves inside, first cut a short slit in the base of the cabbage, enough to get a grip on either half, and then gently pull the halves apart so the cabbage splits open.

Cut a slit through the core of each half, 2 inches above the stem. You want the cabbage leaves to be loose but still attached to the core

Dunk the halves in a large basin of water to get them wet. Sprinkle the salt between the leaves by lifting up every leaf and getting salt in there. Use more salt closer to the stems, where the leaves are thicker

Let the cabbages rest for 2 hours. Turn over every 30 minutes, so they get well salted. From time to time you can ladle some of the salty water from the bottom of the basin over top of the cabbages if you want to

After 2 hours, wash the cabbage halves a few times under cold running water. Giving them a good washing, to remove the salt and any dirt. As you wash, split the halves into quarters along the slits you cut into earlier. Cut off the cores, and put them in a strainer over a basin so they can drain well.

While the cabbage is salting for 2 hours, and in between the times you’re turning it over, you can make the porridge:

Combine the water and the sweet rice flour in a small pot. Mix well with a wooden spoon and let it cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes until it starts to bubble. Add the sugar and cook 1 more minute, stirring. Remove from the heat and let it cool off completely.

Pour cooled porridge into a large mixing bowl. Add garlic, ginger, onion, fish sauce, and hot pepper flakes. Mix well with the wooden spoon until the mixture turns into a thin paste

Add the radish, carrot, and green onion, plus the Asian chives (or more green onions) and the water dropwort if you’re using them. Mix well

Make kimchi:

Spread some kimchi paste on each cabbage leaf. When every leaf in a quarter is covered with paste, wrap it around itself into a small packet, and put into your jar, plastic container　

On fermentation:

The kimchi will start fermenting a day or two at room temperature, depending on the temperature and humidity of your room. The warmer and more humid it is, the faster the kimchi will ferment. Once it starts to ferment it will smell and taste sour, and pressing on the top of the kimchi with a spoon will release bubbles from beneath.

Once it starts to fermented, store in the refrigerator to use as needed. This slows down the fermentation process, which will make the kimchi more and more sour as time goes on.

Pandan Ogura Cake

 

I've been itch to try pandan ogura cake since I saw some fellow blogger post about this cake.  Pandan Ogura cake is kind of similar to chiffon cake which the cake texture is kind of airy , the different is baking method - as we called water bath method, which there is steam needed to help cake baked.  And also add a natural food color, from pandan extract.   You will find the pandan leaves very easy , mostly at Asian market. 

 

My husband like this cake, even thou he prefer butter cake which is more 'stiff' than 'airy' type of cake.  And my daughter ? she was not impress by this cake  Hahahaha... I think because she not fan of the color thou, she said,  she will like if I using chocolate powder instead ...

 

I combine several recipe that I found through online, and this is recipe that I already fix here and there for my taste and work well for me.  Let's give a try

 

 

 

 

Pandan Ogura Cake

5 eggs (seperated while is cold)

1 whole egg

1/4 salt

 

80 gr castor sugar

60 gr vegetable oil

70gr pandan juice - you can use pandan extract as much as 1 tsp

20gr coconut milk

75gr all purpose flour

1/4 tsp cream of tar tar or subtitute with 1 tsp lemon juice

 

Directions :

Prepare 8" square or round pan - grease the pan, dusting with a little flour and cover with parchment paper .

Another square pan quite bigger than 8" for water bath method.

Is important to check your oven correctly, I set my oven 300F for bake this cake.

Beat 5 egg yolk, 1 whole egg, salt , vegetable oil , pandan juice and coconut milk with hand whisker until fluffy. Shift in flour, then mix it until well combine. Set aside

Beat egg white and lemon juice or cream of tar tar with mixer about 2 minute, add castor sugar little by little , continuesly mix until firm peak form, with rubber spatula add this white meringue to the yolk batter, fold the batter until nice smooth batter is created.

Pour the mixture into prepared pan, tap 2 times so the air will pops up .

Put the pan into the larger pan , slide to the oven and carefully filled the outside pan with hot water, about 1/3 batter pan. Bake for aboout 50minute.

Once baked, remove from the pan immediately, to avoid cake become shrink . inverted on a rack .. take the parchment paper , cool completely before slicing