Easy Potato Chives Cakes

In the light of detox program (still eating the good food but minus all the unhealthy stuff), I'm making ministrone soup, again. But, this time I don't want to eat it with bread, so what should be the companion for this soup. At first, I'm considering of making polenta cakes or corn bread (yeah! maybe I'll make this next time). But, I have 1 pack of potatoes in my fridge.. hmmm... Making croquette (noo, not the Japanese one, the Indonesian one) is very time consuming and I'm... lazy... so I opt on the easy one, potato patties.. It's still look like croquettes somehow, but yeah... it's easy... that's the keyword...

What you need:

700 gr potatoes - steamed

30 gr Edam cheese - shredded

1 pack chives - chopped fine

Bread crumbs

How to:

1. In a bowl mashed the potato and combine the cheese and chives until well mixed

2. Round them into small patties, about 60gr each and cover them with bread crumbs.

3. Sprinkle bit of on the top and bake at 160C for about 35min.

Simple right?

It makes a very light meal and definitely makes your tummy happy.

Enjoy!

Healthy "Gratin"

I'm inspired to make potato gratin with bunashimeji mushroom after I ate mushroom bread 2 days ago. The bread topping is bunashimeji mushroom mixed with potato and topped with cheese (am pretty sure there's some mayo mixed in there too). The topping tasted like gratin and I've been having some since then. BUT, there's only 1 problem... I have to loose weight (nuoooooo...) and gratin is a very sinful dish with lots of cream and cheese. So, this is where the experiment begins. I still want to eat my gratin, but I need to find healthier alternative. So, that left me with 1 choice, soy milk custard. Doable? Definitely because to me, anything milky plus egg is custard. It definitely won't be creamy fantastic like the original gratin, but so long it tastes good, I'm in, plus you won't feel guilty.

Yield: 12" ramekin

What you need:

500 gr potatoes, sliced round (scallop potatoes cut)

1 bunch parsley, chopped, leave some not chopped for topping

bread crumbs (I made my own, blender some baguette croutons)

2 packs bunashimeji mushroom, cut the root and separate

1 onion, thinly sliced

2 tbsp dried chili (optional)

custard: 

1L soy milk
3 no eggs (3 eggs will make soft custard, 4 eggs will firm it up)
seasoning: salt, pepper, sugar, nutmeg (optional)

How to:
1. Preheat oven to 170C
2. On a bowl, mix all custard ingredients until all well mixed and frothy. Set aside.
3. On a wok, stir fry dried chili and onion, until the onion is quite soft, then add in the mushroom. Cook until mushroom is half cooked. Set aside.
4. On the ramekin, place in order, potatoes, mushrooms, parsley, bread crumbs, repeat until the ramekin is filled.
5. Pour in the custard mix until you see that the ingredients are well soaked (don't over pour)
6. Bake for about 40-60 minutes (it takes quite long to bake soy milk custard, especially the soft custard mix, the firmer custard mix should bake faster)

Tips:
1. Definitely must try this with milk, cheese and cream plus mayo for topping.
2. Stir frying the mushroom with dried chili will reduce the smell and I use parsley to further reduce it down (another function of parsely aside from making your dish pretty)
3. Try with different type potatoes (I mix Russettes and red potatoes because they're on sale :p but must definitely try with Yukon Gold)

Enjoy!

PS: This is as far as I'll compromise, there's no way I'll trade my cheesecakes with tofu cheesecakes... euuwww...

Pastel Panggang

Another prominent dish from my childhood days (by now you'd know already why I like good food haha). The recipe will differ from one family to another, just happen that my family use ear mushroom. I heard before that others use saussages, winers, corned beef, etc, so you might actually had this dish too before, just served it differently. This Dutch influenced dish is basically consists of mashed potato layered w/ fillings and baked.

Ingredients:
Mashed potato:
5 large Russet potatoes, peeled and boiled till well cooked (steamed is another option)
35gr cheese (Dutch Cheddar is the best for this)
15gr heavy cream / milk
Filling:
2 rolls Vermicelli - soaked, chopped
300gr green beans - thinly cut
4 big dried ear mushrooms - soaked, chopped
200gr minced chicken - mix w/ corn flour and season w/ salt, pepper
1 egg - for egg wash
Seasoning: salt, pepper, sugar, basil

How to:
1. In a big bowl, add in potatoes, cheese and cream, mash the potato w/ potato masher or hand blender until all ingredients well combine and smooth
2. On a skillet w/ medium fire, heat up about 3 tbsp olive oil and cook the minced chicken while break it to small bits. Then add in the rest of the filling ingredients. Cook until green beans are soft enough, then lightly season the mix w/ pepper, salt, basil and sugar 
3. Pre-heat oven to 175C while doing the assemble.
4. Assemble: on baking dish, put mashed potato as base, then alternate w/ filling until the top finish w/ the mashed potato again and brush the surface w/ egg wash. Make sure potato layer is firmed, not leaving any vacumn in the middle of the layer by tapping each layer lightly w/ spoon. For smooth top finish, use the back of the spoon to level the mashed potato.
5. Bake for about 40 min until you get the golden brown surface.

Tips:
1. To be efficient in the kitchen: First, boil potatoes while you do the cutting prep. Then after potato is cooked, quickly do the mashed potato, then set it aside. Next is to cook the filling. Once filling is done, pre-heat oven and do assemble straight away. So, once you finish assemble, oven is ready for your dish and off it goes. All this steps, exclude the baking time, should take you about 1 hour.
2. If you don't like green beans, you can sub it w/ asparagus or chinese parsley.
3. For cleaner taste, you could opt to add butter to your mashed potatoes to sub for the cream, or even add both. Butter/cream will make your mashed potatoes fluffy. But the cheese is a must for me because it gives the taste and body to the mashed potatoes.

Baked Macaroni

When it comes to my childhood comfort food, one prominent dish that comes to mind is this baked macaroni. My mom baked it so often that the taste always lingers in the brain. But now as I'm getting more picky on fatty food (dessert is an exception), I don't want to use the luncheon meat so I sub it with chicken instead, and off course with much less less cheese.

Ingredients:

300gr dried macaroni (elbow pasta) - boiled and strained, set aside
150gr shredded cheddar (get the processed cheddar cheese to get the crunchy topping)

Filling:
2 tomatoes - seeded and diced
60gr sun dried tomatoes - thinly sliced
150gr minced chicken
1 onion - thinly diced
Seasoning: nutmeg, black pepper, sugar, salt, basil

Custard:
400ml milk
3 eggs
Seasoning: nutmeg (1 pinch), black pepper, sugar, salt

How to:
Filling:
1. In a bowl, mix minced chicken with little bit of corn flour, black pepper, sugar and salt, set aside
2. On a wok, medium fire, sautee onion and sundried tomatoes w/ olive oil until fragrant, toss in minced chicken, and cook the chicken while breaking it to small pieces. Once chicken is done, off fire and set the filling aside.
Custard:
1. On a bowl, whip w/ hand whisk eggs and little bit of sugar till fluffy, add on milk and the rest of the seasoning. Whisk the mixture till well mixed and set aside.
Assemble:
1. Preheat oven to 175C
2. On the casserole dish, stack in order: macaroni, cheese, filling, tomatoes, cheese, macaroni, cheese, filling, tomatoes, macaroni, cheese. Whichever the order, macaroni must be on the bottom and top. Finish the stacking w/ the cheese to get the crust.
3. Pour in the custard until the stacks are soaked nicely.
4. Bake for 45min (check after 35min whether the custard all cooked by pressing the top. If the custard still oozing out from the crust, put it back for another 10min and check again afterwards).

Tips:
1. Kids may not fancy the idea of chicken and sundried tomatoes, so best to go with the luncheon meat or corned beef. If you want some color, you can keep the tomatoes.
2. For luxury version, sub the chicken with cubes of honey baked ham. It costs much more than chicken but definitely more tasty.
3. If you're into the mozzarella or cheddar, this dish will also work well, but you won't get the crisp top like the one on the pic. The closest cheese to get that crisp is parmesan, but I like the processed cheddar best for this dish. It's the Kraft's cheese in the blue box, every country packaging is different but the blue box is the same. But apparently it's nowhere to be seen in the US, for parmesan will have to do for those living in US.