Too Much Food » Snacks

Deep Fried Delicacies I: Kuih Keria (Malaysian Sweet Potato Donuts)

Pinjing — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 05:34:06 +0000

The perils of taking photos at night when you’re standing in the kitchen with your contacts out: Blurry shots.

Way back in July, my mom gifted me with a cute mini-deep fryer for my birthday. I was simultaneously excited and apprehensive at the same time; would I succumb to deep-frying anything and everything that I had? By the end of the night, I had already drawn up grandiose plans to deep fry oreos, twinkies, mushrooms, onions (ala Chicken Charlie) but I never followed through, putting health concerns first.

With the temperature in Southern California finally dipping down to the low 60′s this week (yes, my friends, I consider low 60′s cold. I know I’m a wimp), I finally decided to bust out the deep fryer in an attempt to put on another layer of fat in anticipation of winter. I had some beautiful Japanese sweet potatoes so I decided on making kuih keria, a simple but lovely Malaysian street food.

Kuih Keria is just a combination of flour and steamed sweet potato flesh, shaped into rings and deep fried. Traditionally coated in a sugar glaze that’s left to crystallize (allowing for a great crunch when you bite into one), I opted to just coat them in a layer of granulated sugar. If you’re interested in a great and informative blog post about kuih keria, check out Eating Asia’s article on a father-daughter team in Melaka, Malaysia that turns out beautifully caramelized/glazed kuih keria.

These are delicately sweet, unlike their American counterparts. This donut relies on the sweet potato’s natural sweetness, so try to pick the best sweet potatoes you can for this recipe. These are lovely fresh out of the fryer, with the granulated sugar coating providing a sweet crunch to the fluffy dough. I imagine these would be great in the morning paired with a fresh cup of coffee.

This recipe makes a small batch, as I was testing my fryer. Feel free to double the recipe and make more (you’ll probably want to).

Kuih Keria
Recipe adapted from Seasaltwithfood
Makes 5 mini donuts.

What you’ll need:

125g sweet potato, steamed and mashed
25g all-purpose flour
8 g glutinuous rice flour (a.k.a. sweet rice flour or mochiko)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
pinch of salt
additional spices to taste (cinnamon would go nicely, I think)
oil for deep frying
granulated sugar to coat

The procedure:

Place oil into deep fryer according to the manufacturer’s instructions and preheat to 375F. If you don’t have a deep-fryer, heat up enough oil in a thick-walled pot (at least a depth of 3 inches, I’d say) to a temperature of 375F. As in all situations where there’s a big vat of hot oil involved, make sure you keep an eye on it!

In a medium bowl, whisk together the all-purpose flour, glutinuous rice flour, baking powder, 1 teaspoon granulated sugar and salt. Add additional spices, if using. Add the mashed sweet potato flesh and knead until you get a moist, soft dough. If the dough is too wet, add flour one teaspoon at a time until you get a workable dough. If your dough is too dry, add some lukewarm water; trust your instincts as different sweet potatoes vary in water content. Try not to over-knead though, as overcompacting and overworking the dough will result in tough donuts.

Divide the dough into 5 portions, about 35g each. Use your finger and thumb to poke a hole in the middle, making a cute little donut. You are free to roll out the dough and punch them out if you have donut cutters as well.

Place some granulated sugar in a shallow bowl and have it ready. Place a rack with a paper towel underneath it for the donuts that come out of the fryer. Having tongs ready right about now is good too.

Test your oil to see if it’s hot enough; a great test I’ve always used is to stick a wooden chopstick into the oil. If bubbles form immediately and quickly around the chopstick, the oil is ready. If the bubbles are slow to form, it’s definitely not hot enough. Fry the donuts, two to three at a time, making sure not to crowd the pot. Adding them all at once will make the temperature of the oil drop too much, resulting in oily donuts. Fry until golden brown and cooked all the way through, about 6-7 minutes. Using tongs or a slotted spoon, drain the donuts and immediately drop them into the shallow sugar bowl, turning them to coat. Place on the rack to cool briefly and continue to fry the rest of the donuts.

As with all fried goods, enjoy these donuts as soon as possible as their deliciousness is inversely proportional to the time out of the fryer.

Enjoy!

Red Wine Biscotti

Pinjing — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:39:23 +0000

As some of you may know, my blog was recently hacked; I had several recipes pre-written, ready for publishing when I discovered that the hacker had completely wiped out my wordpress database, deleting all my posts, recipes and comments. I was devastated . . .

Needless to say, I have learned my lesson: always keep backups of EVERYTHING. I am so guilty of just being lazy and putting off this simple act of backing up data, thinking “Oh, I’ll just do it tomorrow . . . or next week . . . or later . . .” But you say this every week and when you really do need your backups, it’s too late.

Anyway, I know better now. In a way it was a blessing in disguise; it gave me a chance to breathe new life into the blog. I completely reworked the design of the blog and thought about how to better organize its contents. Hopefully you find the new changes welcome too. I hope to post not only more recipes but restaurant reviews and more thoughts on food in general. Because if you know me, I think about food. A LOT.

Ok! Off my soapbox and back to the food. I’ve always been intrigued with cooking with wine, and when I came across this recipe at Lisa’s Kitchen, I knew I had to try it. I don’t know about you, but I prefer my biscotti to be earth-shatteringly crispy and crunchy . . . not so much a fan of the tender version (wouldn’t it just be a gussied-up long, skinny version of a cookie?) I prefer bake my biscotti in my convection oven, making sure all traces of moisture have been zapped away . . . but if you’re in the tender-biscotti camp, by all means, bake them to your desired preference.

These biscotti were delicious, full of umami with a hint of sweetness in the end. Not only that, they’re super easy to make and vegan as well. By the way, this is a recipe that I had written before my site was hacked; it was a bit difficult to remember the exact measurements for the ingredients listed; for those who do give it a try, leave a comment and let me know how your results turn out.

Savory Red Wine Biscotti
Adapted from Lisa’s Kitchen
Makes about 14 biscotti

What you’ll need:

1 1/2 cups (180g) whole wheat flour
2 tablespoons (22.5g) of sugar
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1/8 teaspoon of sea salt
1/2 teaspoon of freshly cracked black pepper
1 tablespoon caraway seeds (I love this stuff)
2 sundried tomatoes, cut into small pieces and soaked in hot water for 20 minutes
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons red wine
1/4 cup fruity extra-virgin olive oil

The procedure:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients: flour, sugar, baking powder, sea salt, black pepper and caraway seeds. Whisk the dry ingredients together to make sure they are thoroughly combined.

Drain the sundried tomatoes of their soaking water and add to dry ingredients. Stir in the red wine and olive oil until well combined.

Prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper. Scoop dough onto the baking sheet and roughly form into a log about 10 inches long and 3 inches wide (there’s no need to be perfect here). Place sheet in preheated oven and bake for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes have elapsed, remove the biscotti log from the oven and let it cool slightly, about 5-10 minutes (or until your hands can handle touching it). Reduce the oven to 200 degrees F (if you have a convection oven, using the convection function is quite useful here in ensuring crispy, crunchy biscotti). Using a long serrated knife, cut the log into 1/2 inch slices (either on the diagonal or straight across, whichever you prefer). Place the slices, cut side up, back on the baking sheet and bake until desired crispness. My batch took about 30 minutes, with a rotating of the sheet and flipping over the slices halfway in between.

I also made a lime-cilantro-roasted peanut version, substituting beer for the wine, roasted peanuts for the caraway seeds, and throwing in a bunch of lime zest and home-dried cilantro. It smelled delicious while it was baking but the end result lacked the zesty punch I was going for. I’ll have to work on this one a bit more, so I’m not going to put up the recipe yet.

Raw Fooding: Fuyu Persimmon Flax Crackers and Dried Persimmon Chips

Pinjing — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 05:01:20 +0000

I’m in a snacky mood today. Our Fuyu persimmon (the crunchy, non-astringent variety) tree has been particularly bountiful this year; every morning, my dad comes back from the backyard with an armful of freshly picked persimmons. Besides eating them raw, I’ve been trying to think of ways to put them to use before they spoil. Since the sweetness of these fuyus are quite delicate and I didn’t want to overpower it, I thought that baking them into a flax-type chip might be just the thing.

I improvised a quick recipe by throwing together some flax meal and hot water; a food processor made quick work of chopping the persimmons. Threw in a pinch of kosher salt and a splash of agave nectar and spread the mixture on some parchment and stuck it in the dehydrator to “bake” into flax chips.

The result: A nutty, slightly sweet cracker that has a hint of persimmon and tons of fiber to boot. Delicious! My parents really enjoyed these and I think they’d be great crumbled over oatmeal in the morning or as a breakfast cereal.

Fuyu Persimmon Flax Chips

What you’ll need:

3/8 cup (6 tablespoons) flax meal
3/8 cup (6 tablespoons) hot water
2 ripe Fuyu persimmons
pinch kosher salt
1 teaspoon agave nectar, or to taste

The procedure:
Combine the flax meal and hot water in a large bowl and stir to combine. The texture should be slimy and goopy. That’s ok.

Finely chop Fuyu persimmons (a food processor is good for this) and add to the flax meal/water mixture, add kosher salt and agave nectar, stir until thoroughly combined.

Spread the mixture on sheets of parchment paper. Try to get this about 1/8″ thick, any thicker will make them difficult to dehydrate thoroughly.

Dehydrate for 5-6 hours or until dry to the touch. Break into pieces and enjoy. Store leftovers in an airtight container.

Did I stop there? Nah. Thought I wanted to test out the dehydrator function on our convection oven even further; I sliced some persimmons thinly and dehydrated these as well. These “chips” were crispy and even sweeter than the raw version (even without any added sweetener!). Like apple chips but better. Give them a try.

Dried Fuyu Persimmon Chips

What you’ll need:

As many persimmons as you’d like to dehydrate

The procedure:
Peel persimmons and slice into thin rounds (ideally about 1/16″ to 1/8″ thick, a mandoline would make this easy). Place into dehydrator and dehydrate about 3-4 hours or until dry to the touch. Store in an airtight container.

Hope you enjoy these healthy snacks.

And as usual, me monkeying around with the camera:

Persimmon chip throw!