Baked sticky Cola Chicken Wings

A while ago when Peter and I were watching Masterchef Australia, we were quite impressed by Matt Preston's baked sticky chicken wings. According to Preston, the recipe is simple, fuss-free one-tray-does-it-all baking.  So just days ago I checked his recipe online,

Matt Preston's cola wings

http://www.masterchef.com.au/recipes/cola-baked-chicken-.htm 

They look so yummy I decided to make them myself.  

But just as many reviews below the original recipe, the sauce didn't reduce quite the way it should be. And it's too sweet too in my idea. So my backup plan if the sauce is soupy then I'll just reduce it in a sauce pan, which is a lot faster.

Here's my version.  I put some pork ribs in and baked with the wings too, since I didn't have enough wings.  Cut down the cola to 500 ml and sugar by half, and up soy sauce to 3 tbsps. (Perhaps that's why it didn't reduce the way it should be. But honestly we really don't need that much sugar.)   And added clove and chili flakes to add depth to the flavour and it proved to be absolutely aromatic with a light kick.

500ml cola

1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar

3 cloves garlic, grated

1 large brown onion, grated

3 tablespoons soy sauce

1kg chicken wings/ribs, cut at the joints

Juice of 1/2 lemon

1 tsp clove

1 tsp chili flakes

At the end of 3hr baking, get the soupy sauce out and reduce it in a sauce pan. Then drizzle on the wings. Serve.

So this is the result and I served it with coleslaw and oven-baked chips. The meat falls off the bone just like that and it .

(Sorry about the messy plate and presentation as I'm not very good at it especially with an iPhone.)

So my conclusion is, definitely give it a try because it's super easy.

Knead-free apple cinnamon bread roll - yum!

The other day I went to my friend Marie's place for play date. While my little Ashley was having fun messing with Ryan's trains and other boys' toys, Marie presented some lovely peanut butter rolls and they taste great!  And she told me the best thing about the rolls is that the recipe is knead-free.  Holy rolls, I gotta have this recipe.

So I took photos with my phone, went home and started with the dough following the recipe.  And it WORKED.

This is a sure-fire recipe for those who don't have a KitchenAid or breadmaker, and those who HATE kneading. And with proper filling it tasted just delicious. Enjoy!

Just baked!

(With a bit of glaze)

Ingredients:

1. 200g bread flour (high gluten flour)
2. 50g   cake flour (low gluten flour)
3. 20g   caster sugar
4. 3g     dry yeast
5. 3g     salt
6. 150ml luke-warm milk
7. 30g    unsalted butter, softened

  For the filling:
  1. 1/4 cup sugar (2 Tbsp caster sugar + 2 Tbsp brown sugar or whichever ratio you prefer)
  2. 2 apples, cut into small chunks
  3. 1/2 cup raisins
  4. 1-2 Tbsp rum
  5. 1 Tsp Cinnamon powder
 
(Cook apple chunks and sugar in a small sauce pan for 5 minutes till tender and slightly brown. Add raisins and cinnamon, cook for another 2 minutes. Finally add rum and cook another 1 minutes. Use as filling in bread roll)

PS: I don't do glaze since it's really fattening and sometimes too sweet. But if you'd like you can make glazing. (Then remember to reduce the sugar amount in filling into half( = 2 TBSP)


  Glaze:

   1. 1/2 cup icing sugar
   2. 2 TBSP milk or cream
   3. 1 TSP vanilla extract

   Mix them and you'll get the glaze.


Recipe:
1. Mix well item 1- 5.
2. Blend in milk and butter to make a dough
3. Knead gently on a flat and lightly floured surface till smooth and doesn't look too grainy, for around 3 minutes.
4. Move the dough to a container and proof in a wet/humid spot for around 1-2 hours (with tea towel on). Then move to the fridge and further proof for another 10-18 hours.
5. Remove from fridge. Leave the dough with the towerl on till the it gets back to room temperature
6. Place dough on a clean/lightly floured surface. Use a rolling pin to roll it out to roughly 28cm*22cm in size ( 8.5 inch * 11 inch) and 1 cm thickness.
7. Generously spread apple jam and raisins( or any jam you like) on the flatten dough, and sprinkle small chunks of unsalted butter among the filling

8. Roll from one side into a complete roll, then cut into 7-9 pieces and place them into a 9 by 9 square inch bake ware. Further proof for another one hour with warm towel on in the microwave oven.

9.  Bake in a preheated oven at 350 F/ 175 C for 20-25 minutes. Done!

(This is a different batch which I added a bit of glaze on)

How to make granola bars?

Here's how to make granola bars. I personally would not put any cane sugar since syrup is just enough.


1/4 Cup butter, softened
1/2 Cup maple syrup
1/2 Cup natural cane sugar
5/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 Cup crunchy granola with raisins

Cook together in a sauce pan: butter, maple syrup, sugar and salt. Bring to soft ball stage. Add vanilla and granola. Spread evenly in an 8 * 8 pan. Cut into squares and serve.

Pleasant weekend in Jakarta(1)

First of all, Happy Birthday to Geri!!! Time to register a Facebook account, Geri, now that you got a new laptop and hours to spend on it. *wink*

when I wake up at 9 AM(still sleepy) , Peter is already up and reading newspapers. Like most of the days in Jakarta since after we moved here, it's a lovely Sunday morning, with sunshine filled in the living room and sunny outside our hotel room window. We got some plans for today, but don't intend to make it a busy day yet. So we take our time.

Breakfast are simple. Tea and the croissants with blueberry jam, bought at the Cilandak Square yesterday. I remember we spend a good 10 minutes deciding which one to get. When it comes to discussions, important or not, it has almost become a typical question-and-answer, dodge-ball like conversation between Peter and I. And fact is, I've never realized myself this clearly to be irrational and indecisive when compared to my man.

To start with, I can't help but distracting myself at other things on the isle, such as spotting a bottle of nice Caramel syrup, and then beginning fantasizing how good it'll be in my coffee, forgetting all we really want is just the jam. Then my thoughts are redirected back, temporarily, and we talk about which size and flavor to get.
I don't want to get a big bottle and make it inconvenient to move again into our house, but Peter doesn't care and the truth is, we already bought some unnecessary stuff along the way in the past three weeks, including a Panda


stuffed toy we bought at the Beijing airport, thinking it'd be a token of the good memories in Beijing. Some not-so-tasty nameless Indonesian snacks, and an aluminum saucepan, which i didn't realize there's already one in the kitchen, and that it is actually releases toxins when used. So a bottle of jam wouldn't hurt really.

Flavor. Marmalade is my all-time fav, but the part-time master of the kitchen says it's better to pick a sweeter flavor to go better with something. Then he throws the ball back, saying it's really up to me and he doesn't mind any flavor at all... After all aspects considered, brands and flavors scanned, misunderstandings clarified, we picked the blueberry jam.

And that was just a tiny one that happened among the activities we had on Saturday afternoon at the mall. Lunch was at an seafood restaurant in the "Citos" Mall. We ordered salad, drinks, and a seafood platter. The seafood platter wasn't exquisite but not too bad for a reasonably inexpensive price at 100,000 Rupiah(apprix. 10 USD). And it filled up our stomach well. The salad taste a bit funky because it's sprinkled with some dried fish bits and mayonnaise, and the dressing tastes more like Japanese style rather than balsamic. Good surprise is the big jug of passion fruit smoothie.
Artificially flavored but still tastes nice. =)

After a quick caffeine boost, we saw our first movie in Jakarta - "Knowing", starred by Nicolas Cage. Neither did we expect it to be an alien-related flick, and we were both a bit disappointed at the end. But 3 USD for a movie ticket isn't too bad for a new movie played in a nice cinema, with comfortable faux velvet seats. All in all it was not a superb movie experience but worth the money.