Salt & Rosemary Focaccia Bread

When you're frustrated but are not signed up to a kickboxing class, or punching your pillow gets tiring... bake bread. And don't use a bread maker, make it the old fashioned way. I find that the act of making bread, of kneading and punching the dough to be one of the most exhausting and, at the same time, relaxing activities I can do in the kitchen.

So I made rosemary focaccia bread. The best thing about this particular form of venting my frustrations is that I get to enjoy the hard earned spoils after I've gotten it all out! Some of you may have heard my "emotions get transferred into flavour" superstition, so I don't usually like baking when angry or upset, but I make an exception for bread.

I got this recipe from Joel, you may remember him from previous posts (ricotta ravioli, shaksuka, etc.). He's a brilliant cook, loves experimenting with new recipes and is a great friend to boot. He made this to go with our shaksuka a while back, so when I had a craving for shaksuka last weekend, I definitely needed to recreate it. If you find yourself waking up early on a weekend and want to make an awesome brunch for your family (or even to have yourself), try this out.



Salt and Rosemary Focaccia

• 2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
• 1 3/4 cup warm water
• 3 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 2 tsp salt
• 4 1/2 tbsp virgin olive oil
• A handful of fresh rosemary
• Sea salt flakes

1. Combine the active dry yeast and warm water in a small bowl and leave it for 10 minutes. Do not stir, allow the yeast to activate and froth until the very end
2. In a food processor, pulse the flours and salt, then add the activated yeast and 2 tbsp of olive oil and continue to pulse until a ball forms
3. Remove the dough and leave it to rise in a bowl coated in oil. Cover the bowl with a clean tea towel and leave it to rise for 2 hours
4. Drizzle olive oil on a 13" x 9" baking sheet, punch down the dough, place dough on the baking sheet and cover again with the tea towel to allow it to rest for 30 minutes (min) 
5. Preheat the oven to 230°C
6. Sprinkle about 2 tbsp of roughly chopped rosemary over the surface of the dough, then using your index finger (that finger better be clean and washed) push little belly buttons into the dough to cover the surface. Drizzle with olive oil, allow it to pool in some of the belly buttons (sorry, that's just what Joel calls them lol), and sprinkle the sea salt flakes over
7. Bake at 190°C for 20 - 25 minutes. Remove from the oven, allow it to cool a little before slicing it up and serving with Shaksuka. Perfect!

Caramelised Garlic Quiche

I told you I was addicted! To be fair though, the last quiche that I posted, I made last month... but this time, I baked it, photographed it, ate it, and am gonna blog it. It's just that good. I've always loved garlic in my recipes, and have a special spot in my heart for roasted garlic mashed potatoes, but up until this week... I never knew I could enjoy caramelised garlic.

Also, the word caramelised has always put me off in the past. I've tried caramelising fennel, onions, and an assortment of other such root vegetables... they've all been one failure after another. I suppose this time I was just mentally prepared for all the wrong that could happen, so it worked! And ooh baby, the smell of that caramelised garlic wafting around your kitchen is hella good.

If you live in a tropical country and your body temperature just tends to run hot... you might wanna invest in a food processor with which you can create a perfect shortcrust pastry every single time. I used to suffer over these things with my hands, trying to keep them cool by always running them under water. But my crust always turned out way too hard. I got my Kenwood food processor for Christmas last year, and as a result I've been making various pastries I was always too afraid to try almost every other week!

Without further ado, here's the recipe for my Caramelised Garlic & Gruyere Quiche

Shortcrust Pastry

• 1 1/2 cup flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp sugar
• 113g stick cold butter, cut into small cubes
• 4 - 5 tbsp ice cold water

1. Preheat the oven to 200C and prepare your tart pan by greasing with a light layer of butter
2. Combine the flour, salt and sugar in the food processor and blend for a moment to ensure everything has mixed
3. Then cut the butter in bit by bit and pulse after each addition until the mixture resembles coarse pebbles
4. Pour in 3 tbsp of the ice cold water and whizz until it begins to come together, pour in the remaining water gradually (I find that 4 tbsp is enough) until it looks like it does in the picture below
5. Shake the batter out onto a piece of baking paper and pat down into an oval shape, then let it sit for 30 minutes
6. When ready to bake, roll the batter out into a large circle and press into the tart pan. Bake for 8-10 minutes then remove from the oven to fill with quiche goodness

Filling the quiche:

Cheese layer: I used a block of Swiss Gruyere, and a block of mature cheddar. Grated these both and then layered them into the baked crust, leaving roughly 3/4 cup of gruyere to top the quiche with later

Caramelised Garlic

• 2 heads garlic, cloves peeled individually
• Olive oil
• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 220 ml water
• 1 tbsp caster sugar
• 1 tbsp chopped rosemary leaves, plus extra sprigs to use later
• 1 tsp dried/fresh thyme

1. In a small, non-stick saucepan, blanch the garlic cloves in water for up to 8 minutes (or until the water boils, then let it simmer for a bit) then drain the water and put the slightly softened garlic aside
2. Return the saucepan to the heat and heat about 2 tbsp of olive oil. When it's hot, put the garlic cloves back in and fry for roughly 3 - 4 minutes
3. Add the water and bring to a boil, then let it simmer and add the balsamic vinegar, caster sugar, rosemary, thyme, salt, and pepper
4. Simmer for up to 10 minutes, or until the water has reduced to just cover the bottom of the pan (and not the garlic cloves). Remove from heat and scatter over the cheese layer

Egg custard (?) mixture

• 2 eggs
• 200ml cooking cream
• Salt
• Pepper

1. Whisk all ingredients together and pour over the entire quiche mixture, then crack some extra pepper and scatter your rosemary leaves, and cover with the left over cheese. Pop into the oven, lower the temperature to 160C and bake for 45 minutes. 

Caramelised garlic is the new white meat in my books, my friends, LOL. This beautifully sweet and complex flavour, with the smoky gruyere cheese and the almost floral taste of rosemary... all soaked in a giant omelette, it's just my version of a love song to my family. 

I really hope some of you try this recipe, it takes roughly 30 minutes to prepare and you'll have it ready for a nice Sunday lunch! So so so so soooo beautiful, guys. 

Have a good weekend, much love x

Warning: Highly Addictive Oven Chips

I remember my uni days in Bristol, especially on those cold nights when I couldn't be bovvered to put sensible walking shoes on and step outside onto the icy pathways, where I would delve into my cheat pack of frozen oven chips... which I would proceed to cover in home made sesame oil (I had a Korean housemate whose mother shipped this stuff to him by the crate!), rosemary, salt and pepper then coat them completely in Heinz ketchup when they were ready. Let this not fool you: it wasn't the chips I craved, it was the ketchup. Weird, eh?

Anyway, since I've been back in Malaysia, I hardly ever eat home made chips anymore. This is probably because food is almost always prepared when I get home, or chips are so cheap and readily available from everywhere. The difference is: they're always shoestring fries. Me no likey.

So last month when my parents decided to throw a barbecue, I decided to prepare the carbs and instead of frozen oven chips I'd do it right. Now that I am older and wiser... LOL right.

Easy & Highly Addictive Oven Chips

• 2 large russet potatoes, scrubbed and cut lengthwise into 1/2 inch sticks/wedges
• 2 large sweet potatoes, same as above
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 3 tbsp fresh rosemary leaves
• A sprig of spring onions, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 tsp chicken stock cube, dissolved in hot water
• Black pepper

1. Preheat oven to 200C
2. Soak the potato wedges in a large bowl of hot water for 10 minutes, drain the potatoes then pat them dry
3. Put the potatoes back into the bowl and toss them in olive oil, rosemary, spring onions, garlic, chicken stock, and pepper
4. Arrange the potatoes in a single layer on a baking tray, cover lightly with a piece of foil and pop in the oven for up to 5 minutes (the foil will trap the moisture in)
5. Remove the foil, then continue to bake for another 20 minutes or until they're a nice golden brown, then flip the potatoes with a spatula and continue to bake for another 10 minutes on the other side
6. Serve hot with an extra sprinkling of sea salt and/or pepper

I'm babysitting my siblings this weekend as my parents will be out of town, so I'm definitely going to prepare this dish with a side of grilled chicken breasts or something. Who cares, this goes with everything! lol

Easy peasy recipe, and I guarantee that you won't go back to frozen oven chips once you've tasted this.

Have a good weekend, friends, much love from the Happy Hufflepuff x

One Pot Chicken Roast

My grandmother calls my style of cooking "masak terjun", which loosely translated means I toss anything I have at hand into my dishes. This is fine with me, and I've started naming dishes "spaghetti terjun", "dhal terjun", "roast terjun", "cake terjun", anything terjun LOL. Terjun, literally translated means "dive".

Here's another dish that I've made frequently ever since my uni days, inspired by a picture I saw in a cookbook when I was in school. I'll call it One Pot Chicken Roast for the purposes of this recipe post, however, friends can refer to it as Chicken Terjun hahahaha

Every single time I make this dish, it turns out tasting different. I have yet to recreate the same dish twice, as my measurements are never accurate, my ingredients differ, and my cooking style changes too. Last weekend, I made it for my extended family's Sunday dinner (a new thing we're trying to institutionalise as family tradition), and while I usually pop the chicken in the air fryer for a bit before roasting, I got a bit lazy this time around. It still turned out quite well (I like to think), so I'll attempt to get the recipe right while it's still fresh.

One Pot Chicken Roast

• 8 potatoes, cut into quarters
• 8-10 assorted chicken cuts (I had thighs and wings)
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil 
• Sea salt flakes (or normal table salt is fine)
• Crushed black pepper
• 3 sprigs of fresh rosemary, off the stalk
• A packet (say 400g?) cherry tomatoes, mixed colours, sliced in half
• 1 lemon
• Red wine vinegar

1. Boil the potatoes in salted water
2. While the potatoes cook, preheat the oven to 200C, prep the chicken by rubbing down with salt, pepper, and olive oil
3. Once the taters are cooked, pop them into a skillet/baking tray, toss the tomatoes in, squeeze the lemon juice, pour with roughly 2 tbsp red wine vinegar, and give it a few glugs of olive oil. Season with salt and pepper, rosemary leaves, then toss with your hands to make sure all that goodness gets everywhere
4. Pop in the oven for 40-50 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through
5. Serve hot! 

It's a quick dinner recipe, and the taste is explosive! Great for a lazy weekend meal that packs a punch.

Lots of love,
Nabs