It's been months since I updated this blog, and for a very good reason: I was too busy enjoying the delicious food in Taiwan. In my short stay there, I must have gained 2 clothing sizes, as I seemed to have done nothing but eat. Food there is incredibly delicious and fresh, and number of eateries is mind boggling. Furthermore, there are so many vegetarian options that it was almost ridiculously simple (with exceptions in certain areas). Instead of struggling to find a decent options, I was struggling to limit my intake given that I only have one stomach. For such a small island, Taiwan boosts a huge number of local produce and specialties, which I can't even begin to cover all.

My home town hosts a busy morning market (aka farmers market) that attracts farmers and vendors from all over every morning. The scene is lively, chaotic, messy, loud, dirty, noisy, crowded, and seemingly inexhaustible. Pedestrian, bicycles, scouter motorcycles crowd into a narrow lane, making moving around all but nearly impossible. The selections here are cheap, fresh, and abundant.

From this market is where my grandmother and I go every morning to obtain daily produce and hunt down our breakfast. As you may have guessed, breakfast options are numerous, and many of them are unobtainable in the US, or for that matter, outside of Taiwan. Of all the foods I missed the most about Taiwan, it has to be the breakfast and the street foods, which -more than restaurant items- seemed to display uniquely local flairs.

Coming next: Breakfast Foods

I think every home baker has at some point searched for the perfect banana bread. We all have our preferences: some like it very dense and banana-y, others like it almost like a cake with chocolate chips. I like it moist, not to sweet, full of taste of bananas with some soft banana pieces hidden in the bread. Well, I think I found my perfect banana bread. The sourdough here balances out the sweetness of the bananas while giving it a moist, light texture. It's also a great way to use the extra sourdough starter.

The original recipe was posted on the Fresh Loaf, but reviews and first attempt confirmed that it needed more bananas - the original recipe was a bit crumbly and in my opinion, need a more banana taste. I added one more banana, replaced the shortening with butter (will try with oil next time), and some other minor adjustments, and here was the version that I ended up with:

1/3 cup butter
1 cup of sugar (1/2 cup of honey or some combination thereof can be used - I used 3/4 cup sugar + 3 TB honey)
1 egg
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1.5 cup mashed overripe banana (about 3 large; I like to roughly mash with some chunks of banana left)
1 cup sourdough starter
3/4 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
1 tsp vanilla or 1 tsp grated orange rind

Preheat oven to 350F.

Cream together the oil and sugar, add egg, and mix until blended. Stir in bananas and sourdough starter. Add orange rind or vanilla. Sift flour, measure again with salt, baking powder, and soda. Add flour mixture and walnuts or pecans to the first mixture, stirring just until blended. Pour into greased 9x5" loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool before slicing.

As you can see based on the photos, I did not follow my own directions and wait for the bread to cool before slicing! I'm sure next time I'll make double batches and wait for one loaf to cool down before slicing so the slices would look better, but the bread smelled too good for me to wait around in front of it. Hence the crumbly - but delicious appearance. Also, I got to say I am a big fan of pecans - pecans all the way in banana bread.

After a month-long hiatus due to an incredibly busy schedule, I'm finally back to updating this blog! With the arrival of spring - though it doesn't feel like so in Chicago - comes a bout of cold for me. And with cold seems to come the craving for soup and desserts.

So when I saw this cake recipe on Smitten Kitchen (which is, by the way, a great website - as demonstrated by this cake) I knew immediately that I had to try it - I love crumbly, moist, not too sweet cakes, flavored by ripe fruits. I followed the original recipe pretty closely with a few exceptions: I left the apples unpeeled, reduce the sugar slightly as I always do, I used olive oil, and instead of walnuts I used pecans. Because I didn't have a bundt or tube pan, or a pan large enough to hold all the batter, I used a loaf pan and a pie pan to see how it would turn out. As you see, the two pans produce slightly different, but equally yummy, desserts.

The following is after my minor modification:

5 large apples
1 tablespoon cinnamon
5 tablespoons sugar
2 3/4 cups flour, sifted
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup vegetable oil ( I use olive oil)
1 3/4 cups sugar
1/4 cup orange juice
2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
4 eggs
1 cup pecans, chopped (I coated the pecans in the cinnamon-sugar-apple juice)

prebake

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease the pan(s). Core and chop apples into chunks. Toss with cinnamon and sugar and set aside.
Stir together flour, baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together oil, orange juice, sugar and vanilla. Mix wet ingredients into the dry ones, then add eggs, one at a time. Scrape down the bowl to ensure all ingredients are incorporated.

The apples and batter were divided between a 9'x5' metal loaf pan and a 12" glass pie pan. For the loaf pan, I followed the original instructions: half of the batter on the bottom, half of the apples, another half of the batter, and then topped with remaining apples and pecans. Because the pie pan was so shallow, I directly laid the apples on the bottom of the pan, pour the rest of the batter over the apples, and then top the batter with the remaining apples and pecans. The cakes were baked for 1 hour 15 minutes.


First, I tried the pie pan. It was delicious, and I liked the apples on the bottom of the pan. Then I tried the loaf pan. It was awesome! Super moist and so tender that the slices barely able to stand once they are cut. The metal bakeware produced a different crust than the glass, slightly thicker and crunchier. The cake is moistened by the oil and apple juice with no distinct note of olive oil. The apple skin gave pleasant contrast in texture without being hard or chewy, and pecans paired perfectly providing a nutty crunch.

right out of the oven

a slice of loaf cake

I put the remainder of the cake in the pie pan in the fridge, and next day, I had the cake again, both cold and warm (yes, I've very thorough when it comes to cake tasting!). The shallow cake actually tasted really good the next day cold, even better than previous day, with the slightly condensed cake almost tasting like crumble with apple-pecan strudel topping.

next morning

Daikon and miso make a classier soup pairing. Since I only had turnips, I decided to try out this soup with turnips to see how it would turn out. As it turned out, turnips make a great stand-in and actually produces a mildly sweeter broth. The flesh is a little denser than daikon when fully cooked.  This is a simple soup that can be done in 20 minutes and doesn't require broth preparation.

(I used scallion greens here)

With the starter successfully made, now it's time for my first rye bread. I chose to make the Alpine baguettes from Local Breads as a first recipe because while the bread uses a rye starter, the bread itself is made using wheat flour, making the dough easier to handle.

First, soak the grain and seeds the night before making the bread. This recipes calls for oats, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, and sesame seeds.

Next time, mix together the seeds and the flour mixture. This is when dough whisk comes in handy (thanks Joedy!).

As you can see, the dough is quite sticky.

Unfortunately I got distracted while measuring flour and forgot how much I added, so I tried to play by ear. I had to add A LOT of flour to prevent the dough from gluing onto my hands. My guess was that I miscounted by 1 cup. Even after adding +1 cup of flour, this is still a fairly sticky dough to work with. Finally, I realized that the trick is to use a pair of very well-oiled hands to knead the dough.

After the first rising, the dough divided into 3 pieces and each piece fold into thirds:

The dough is then rested for about an hour until it it puff up, and shaped into baguette form. It then goes into the oven for about 25 minutes. I didn't have parchment paper, so the baguette dough got somewhat misshaped when I lifted it from the counter to the baking stone.

Whole wheat grains taste better after it's been cooled down. However, I couldn't wait that long as I was hungry. When cut immediately after coming out of the oven, the inside look almost gummy:

It taste really good with lingonberry preserve:

As you can see, the appearance improved next day. It looks much more bread-like.

(Those are Italian veggie sausage in the background. I have to admit they are actually pretty good and the spiciness goes well with rye breads).

For a first attempt, I was happy with the way this bread turned out. It was the first time in years I had bread that somewhat resembled the bread I ate in Germany. The aroma of the bread is slightly tangy without being sour at all. The pumpkin seeds give it a nutty, earthen scent. The rye starter gave it a unique flavor that taste worlds apart from the rye one get at the supermarkets here. Despite forgetting how many cups of flours I put in and trying to eye it from there, the bread took a life of its own and was well-received by the people I shoved it to. So if people tell you that rye sourdough or German breads are hard to make, or if things don't look perfect, don't fret, just go make it. It may actually turn out fine!

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