Eat, Drink, Brunch

My lets play in the test kitchen at a friend's Casablanca ended up being a brunch party with wonderful company. 

                There was banh mis, cheese party, delicious refreshments, Rudy's, and dessert (spelled with 2's')

I hosted a banh mi bar~I was occupied with the prepping & cooking, didn't get to take many pics. Thanks VMA for the pics~

Kneading & Rinsing the veggies

 A few days before the brunch, I got a start on my veggies. Do Chua aka Pickled Carrots.

My mandolin was defected, so I had to chopped up some julienne carrots & grated the daikons.

After 45 min of chopping & grating, the next step was to massage them..JK..Sprinkle some salt and I started kneading for a few minutes to get all the moisture out until it was flimsy carrot.

bathing time!

Next step was to rinse off all the salt.

Now the veggies are ready to be bathe in a glass jar. They say you can make this a day or few hours ahead of time. My batch was pickled for about 4 days.

My first meat filling is from the pig. I tried to make Vietnamese sausage aka Cha Lua. click me for more info. For Christmas, I'm so asking Santa for a bad ass food processor. Cha Lua requires a lot of grinding to where the the pork becomes paste. I had lots of air bubbles, and it was mistaken for vegetarian sausage. Next time, I will ask the butcher to grind my pork twice, hopefully that helps!

 Ingredients were simple:

Ground Pork, Baking Soda, Fish Sauce, Water, and Tapioca Starch.

The prepping process took about 1.5 days

  

I was not pleased with the texture, so I fried it. It helped a little bit. Frying gave it a crispy texture on the outside. When you fry cha lua its called cha chien

My second filling is from the cow. A few days before the tasting I made my own Bo Ne. It was delicious & tons of flavor. But sure was greasy from all the butter I used -_-

 However, at the tasting I was so disappointed at myself. I went the frugal route and used sirloin instead of ribeye steak. OMG it was so BAD. I'm so embarrassed to discuss about it.  The eggs were also dry as well...hahah because I didn't use as much butter or grease like Paula Deen. I had the skillet work its magic on low heat.

 

winner winner chicken dinner

My third filling is from the hen. I made ga ro ti, roasted chicken. Save the best for last. 

Thanks Sous Chef~

Baguettes catered from Parisian Bakery & Thim Hing

Made my own Vietnamese mayo aka butter. Will defiantly work on that..still wondering why fresh garlic changes some things. I Didn't have the guts & time to make Pate, so I cheated and bought some ^_^

Preparing the chestnuts.

For dessert, I made Che Thai. Simple make ahead dessert. My favorite ingredient is the f aux pomegranate, its chestnuts covered in tapioca flour.

 Enough of banh mi, time for other goodies!!

Beautiful & Delicious Cheese Assortment

Birdy made Wrapped Baked Brie filled with some kind of jam and topped with brown sugar..So delicious~

Delicious beverages provided by the 211 ladies. So bubbly and refreshing~

 Chinese Egg Tarts & Mochi Balls courtesy of Mr. Lam.

Our Test Kitchen Item that failed...Brazilian Cheese Bread

That's it for now....can't wait to plan the next party~

later gators, bmg

chinese egg custard

What is Chinese Egg Tarts? For more info Click Me!

For the past week or so I've been brainstorming on projects in my kitchen.
 
So my first project....that I couldn't get off my mind Chinese Egg Custard! My mouth was drooling each time I think back the times I eat them at Dim Sum or Chinese bakeries. After researching and mixing recipes for a few days...I managed to find one that I can use.

 I've noticed that Dim Sum joints sells Pastry Puff Egg Tarts while Chinese Bakeries serves them in a foil cup like a pie custard.

Pastry Egg Tarts

Pie Crust like Tarts

The recipe I found for  the dough was quite simple. It's a lot of work to mix with your fingers, but I cheated and used my Kitchen Aid Mixer. I didn't have any tart shells so I used a muffin pan instead. As for the custard..OMG it was the hardest thing to figure out. All the recipes were in ML or Grams. I didn't have a problem using the conversion chart but the recipes that was given did not make any sense. For example, recipe calls for 80ML of evaporated Milk...that's about 2.75 oz...in the video it looked like almost a cup of liquid. Finally I found a recipe that made some sense. However, the custard was way too sweet! I had extra frozen puff pastry dough in the freezer and gave it a test!..haha it failed...big time!

Simple Recipe just calls for 2cups of flour, 1/2 cup powdered sugar, 5 oz butter, & 1 egg.
As for the custard, I can't find the amount I wrote down on a post it note. There was evaporated milk, simple syrup, and egg yolks.

Strain the custard mix for no lumps~

I used too much simple syrup, causing it to be a very sweet custard.

Regular Egg Tarts

Mini Egg Tarts...can you spot the puff pastry tarts?

TADA~

 I went to bed and forgot to put away my egg tarts...luckily, I was able to share some with my friends :)
I think Egg Tarts are best to eat fresh everyday..i believe it gets soggy the next day.

happy cinco de mayo~ time for some ritas.
Later gators,
bmg

Bo Ne

What is Bo Ne?

Bo Ne is the Vietnamese version of steak & eggs...For more info on Bo Ne click me

Tan Ba Le a banh mi joint that bakes their own baguettes also known for their "Bo Ne"

Before starting this venture, I had their banh mi every once in a blue moon because its not too far from my folks. Lets just say it was not tasty! Well at that time my sister was into the bbq with fried egg...that was asking for a heart attack..I dont recall tasting anything except grease. I tried the simplest banh mi; cha lua. They were out of regular Cha Lua so the owner gave me Cha Chien. The baguettes were so hard and yet again no taste. That was the last time I ever ordered banh mi from them.

The reason I came back to TBL was for their DIY steak & eggs banh mi.

It was packed for a Saturday lunch, about 95% of the customers ordered Bo Ne. My friend & I shared a Bo Ne and Chicken Curry. The place looks clean, not a hole in the wall, not to mention the shopping center is barely 5 years old? Its a cute lil mom & pops joint...along with some of their little roach friends.. I saw one crawling on the edge of the table but flicked it off, later on in the middle of eating the owner brought out a bowl for our curry and i spotted a smushed dead one on the outside of the bowl.

So don't expect me coming back...

On to the Bo Ne DIY banh mi:

Service: The waiter was kinda slow, looks like he was training. (the staff did not use gloves when handling the baguettes)

Bread Quality: Baked fresh in store, warm light & crispy, but bland. Its missing the baguette smell & flavor.

Meat Filling: cup of diced beef & 2 sunny side up eggs on a sizzling platter topped with black pepper & green scallion along with a side of lime salt & pepper dip.

Veggie Filling: a plate of iceberg romaine lettuce with cucumber & tomato slices, topped with thin white onion and a small amount of some kind of dressing (apologies, i forgot how it taste like)

Spread: Butter & Pate in a togo sauce cup (no taste on the butter)

Presentation: Baguettes in a basket, protein on a sizzling cow skillet.

Salad

The fresh baked Baguettes~They have the features of the airy & crispy but missing the aura & flavor of a baguette

Butter & Pate

Bo Ne

DIY Banh mi

Chicken Curry

Chicken Curry

We were hoping to enjoy this dish. Dipping our baguettes into the broth...but FAILED..It was overwhelmed with coconut milk where you can't really taste the curry.

My experience with Bo Ne was mission failed. My level of excitement was like a kid that dropped their ice cream on the ground. All the hype of ppl talking & the photos I saw was just a tease. Sadly, I do not remember what Bo Ne taste like it. If you were to ask me I wouldn't even know whats the ingredients besides..black pepper. For sure I will not be coming back to try out the banh mi or give Bo Ne another try. due to their little roach friends. It seems like its a common problem after reading reviews on it. For more reviews on Tan Ba Le click me

And another one off my list, next time I will have a fling on the other side of town..Veterans Memorial?

Have a good week~

later gators,

bmg

baking Pate de chaud

The past month I made 3 attempts to figure out this pate de chaud pastry.

Batch #1:
Secretly made a batch for a friend's house partay...Thankful that her guest like it...I hope/think


My testing was a competion for the dough:

 pepperidge pastry puff sheet VS safeway(Randalls) pie dough

I used a dumpling mold & it wasn't easy at all. Not to mention lots of dough went to the trash. Yes, I tried to reuse the scraps but it wasn't working out.
My meat fillings were precooked before being wrapped in dough..since pie crust doesn't take long to cook.


I think I overbaked the pastry because it wasn't as flaky as I want it to be.
The pie crust was very very dry, reminded me of this one banh mi joint  on cook and bellaire that sells it, except my dough wasn't sweet like hers.



Pie Crust used with a dumpling mode



Party Puff



Pastry Puff vs Pie Crust




Pastry Puff vs Pie Crust




Batch #2
It was Hello kitty's  surprise party & i decided to have the ladies to be my guinea pigs...We had so much food that night! Thanks Dinosaur for a delicious meal!!
I was relieved & glad the ladies enjoyed it.


This time I stuck with pepperidge farm pastry sheet & used a square pastry cutter instead of a dumpling mode. And I was able to  used up all the pastrysheet! It was pretty cool I was able to make mini ones~


I made two different batches.
I wanted to see if there's a difference with cooked vs uncooked meat.
Sadly, none of us noticed the difference due to the high consumption of food & I couldn't really tell the pastry apart...because I forgot to mark on the pastry.

Need a lot of work in sizing my pastry

Can you tell figure which ones were baked with cooked or uncooked filling?

Batch #3
It was just me, myself, & I for this testing.
This batch knocks off one of the things I have on my bucket list~
I went on a urge to make my pastry puff from scratch. OMG this will be the last time I'm making fresh pastry dough...It wasn't the difficulties in making it, it was the butter portions..let's just say I think I used more butter than Paula Deen! after watching you tube videos & recipes I found...it's crazy the amount of butter you see.
From now on I'm sticking to pepperidge farm...what I don't know, won't kill me!

that's only half of the butter I put in....

Tada! Pastry Puff Dough

I think its time to invest in a rolling pin..

Rounds vs Squares

BAM! I present you pate de chaud from scratch~

The pastry wasn't quite as flaky as I want it to be...I did an error...over mixed the butter and flour -_-

I had a extra box of pie crust from my first batch. I gave it another try & lets just say I will no longer be using pie crust.
I based the inside of the dough with sugar butter...thinking it will have the dough a little moist?
Failed big time!

I even made the top crust a bigger size than the bottom to close the seam...still wouldn't stretched and sadly I made holes:



As you can see my filling wanted to have a peep show~

My next test will be making pickled carrots and daikons!UGH i still want to try Bo NE!!!!
later gators,
bmg