Wheat Kimchijeon

I really must be thankful for the so-called Korean wave that has been rampaging mothers, teens, kids, and *cough* boys for the past year. It seems that everything Korean becomes really cool. It is, actually, though I would not go so far as crying over Korean boy bands when they visited my town nor stuffing my iPod with only Korean songs. I do, though, admit that I love to watch some Kdramas , enjoy several songs that become their soundtracks, and even adore the casts, which are too beautiful too be true. I too have eyes for the cuties and there is no way I’m denying it. Now with that wave, came the urge to try eating what the Koreans eat. As we all know, the staple of Korean food is Kimchi.

I make kimchi.

I sell it.

People love it.

I am happy.

YAY!

But apart from eating it as a side dish and transforming it into a delectable ramen, you can find my Kimchi Ramen recipe here , is there any other delicious way to have kimchi at home?

Of course! There are plenty of recipes using kimchi as base. I’ll share one with the easiest cooking method and with the ingredients which I am sure you have at home, assuming you already have the kimchi in your fridge. If you don’t, then I suppose you are a take away meal-type of woman. Or man. But that is absolutely fine.

Kimchijeon is actually cooked like pancake but with more oil, though not as much as deep frying it, to make rather crispy surface and sides. But here is my version, hassle free and less cleaning up after.

Makes enough for just 1 person.

Ingredients:

-1/2 cup kimchi

-1/4 cup of wheat/all purpose flour

-1/2 tsp sugar

-3 tbs Kimchi brine

-3 tbs water

-2-3 tbs chopped onion

-1/4 tsp gochugaru/hot pepper powder (optional)

-A pinch of salt (optional)

Directions:

- Chop the kimchi and do not squeeze the brine out of it.

-Mix all the ingredients.

-Spray some cooking oil on non-stick pan.

-Pour the batter and cook it like you cook pancakes.

-Serve it with chopped spring onions and sesame oil, if desired.

How easy is that?

Personally, I think this dish is and tastes beautiful.

This dish is vegan though you can add some prawns/squid if you want some seafood goodness. I would advise you to pre-cook the seafood first as to avoid rawness. The best time to eat this is… whenever you feel like it! I usually make it when I feel like having a savory snack between meals or late at night when I cannot afford to sleep just yet due to my study or stuck in game because I cannot defeat the big boss yet.

I hope you enjoy it. Happy hassle free cooking!

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MaMiko is EVOLVING!

When I first started MaMiko, all I ever wanted was to let people know that I sell healthy everyday comfort food. I began with selling cookies that were less sweet, less fatty, and of course using only natural ingredients. Preservatives and coloring were a big no and still a big no up until now. At first, I was happy and I got that child-like giddiness when people bought my cookies and other food I sold.

I mean, who wouldn’t?

Then as the time goes by, even though it has not even been a year yet, lots and lots of things have changed the way I do things and the way I think about cooking. I wanted to step up the game, put a higher stake, and go further from just selling low-fat cookies. Every day I serve my family the healthier version of comfort food and junk food and I thought of how I could help people cook something simple and healthy.

So I wrote.

If you notice the older posts in my blog, you would simply see a picture or two of the food, a little description about the ingredients, and the price. Then I began to write simple recipes, ones I actually develop myself and ones I found interestingly amusing to be made healthier. When I realized how much I enjoyed doing it, I became addicted. The mad scientist in me screamed, “More experiment! Substitute this with that… What if I add this? What’s the conversion again? Oh, this is just wrong! Oh… My… GOD!”

It was as if I unlocked a door to a path I was actually supposed to take from the very beginning. I don’t want just to sell food; I want to share my passion towards the kind of food I love so much. The stories related to it, the different ways to cook it, the variety of ingredients to spice things up, all the wonderful reasons I want people to know why I choose to cook what I cook.

All things happen in their own time.

I got an offer to do something like a co-sponsor for a healthy baby food cooking class by a dear friend of mine who happens to own a superb site about how-to homemade baby food Mamakukokihandal. She asked me whether I have a logo for MaMiko. I did not have any. So by all means, in just three days and tired from being pestered by me, my cousin made me a MaMiko logo.

Kawaii!

I personally think it is UBER cute.

I am also happy I made the decision to put the words ‘healthier choice’ there because that is exactly what MaMiko is all about. I want people to know that there is always a healthier way to enjoy their favorite food and all they have to do is choose to do so.

In accordance with the motto healthier choice, I decided to make a strict guideline about MaMiko’s product. As you all know my food is free from anything artificial, preservatives, coloring, shortening, ghee, and frying method. If there is ever a campaign to stop fried food from existing, then I'm in. Anyhow, as I said before, MaMiko is evolving. I will incorporate more fiber in the new products, have some vegan treats, more unique recipes for my reader to cook at home, and most of all is to stop selling anything with more than 10-15 grams of butter per serving. 

Therefore I am (not that) sad to announce that I discontinue my Creamy Chocolate Chip Cookies product. I love cookies. I love great food. But I do not want to serve people something that tastes good but harmful to their health.  It is against my conscience. You will not find fancy fondant shapes and cute characters or colorful buttercreamed food here. I love the natural color of natural ingredients come together. It spells deliciousness.

I cannot escape butter for 100% especially for my quiche. But each serving of my quiche contains less than 10 grams of butter and that,my friend, is very little amount and should not pose any risk to your health if eaten moderately. If you want to avoid butter completely for quiche then you can request it and I shall use my olive oil pastry I use for all my pies. The details will be elaborated in my quiche post. 

I do have to thank Jamie Oliver and his ministry of food. Even though it does not reach Indonesia but their spirits to revolutionize the way people choose what is good for them to eat does reach deeply to me and my family. If you happen to love Jamie's cooking as much as I do and thinking of what cookbook of his you should buy for your cooking repertoire, or simply if you adore collecting beautiful cookbooks like I do, I strongly recommend Jamie's Food Revolution. You would find easy, healthy, affordable home cooking ideas in here.

What I wish to achieve by making my blog a friendly blog for people who, perhaps just curious in the beginning, are interested in healthy way of cooking and eating is that they would too try to whip up something easy and healthy for their loved ones. Also for people who want to buy my dishes, I want to serve them something seriously tasty without sacrificing their health.

I hope you will all continue to enjoy my blog and my cooking and spread the good words to your friends. I need as much help I can get to get more people realize how important it is, especially people with children and senior citizens, to avoid harmful ingredients in their food and destructive cooking method.

So, opt for healthier choice. MaMiko J

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Beet Wheat Bread

Warning: This post is not for a lazy home baker.

If I had to make a very detailed post, then this would be the one and hopefully the first from many more to come. I did promise in my last post that I would be sharing you the pictures and recipes of the bread I made. I am not a baker’s daughter nor have I enrolled myself in any cooking or baking class before. My true purpose of learning to make good homemade bread is, apart from I can save some bread money- a penny saved is a penny earned-, I want to cut our preservatives intake. Let’s face it; preservatives are everywhere, even in the air we breathe. I am not going to go on a rampage on how we should always eat right because what is right for me may not be right for others. One thing I am sure of and I do know is that by consuming less and less preservatives contained food, we are on the right track towards better health and better life.

If you read my previous post, I mentioned a master baker named Peter Reinhart. When I first read his book last year about his search for the perfect pizza in American Pie I was wowed! It was like an epiphany to me! He remembered how his childhood’s favorite pizza tasted like and wondered whether it could get any better. So he went to Italy, from city to city, to discover the ‘real’ pizza. Did I mention he brought his wife along? What a joy! The reason why I was so drawn into reading American Pie was that I am actually very much like Mr. Reinhart when I am really curious about a certain dish I am really passionate about. The way he writes, the way he explains his findings, it is all as if he was in front of me passionately telling me about his perfect pizza quest. Then, earlier this year, with the spirit of making homemade bread, I came across his book Artisan Bread Everyday while I was looking for a good bread baking book. 

Boy, it was all worth it. So Peter Reinhart, YOU are responsible for making me obsessed about making bread everyday!

Since my daughter loves bread A LOT and my dear husband is always up to try something new, during the last Chinese new year holiday I took them on a bread trip. 

(Sorry for the poor quality of the pictures, these were taken in a hurry and were initially NOT meant to be posted here :D )

1. Simple Milk Bread

2. My attempt on wheat Baguette

3. Over puffed Ciabatta :D

4. Sourdough Loaf, PERFECT!

5. Challah, Jewish holiday bread.  

    I forgot where my poppy seeds 

    were for the topping.

6. Wheat Babka, Russian 

    chocolate cinnamon bread.

After I scored more success than failure, I was thinking that it would do my conscience justice to try mixing all the different sorts of flour I have at home to make bread instead of just using plain all purpose flour. I happen to love collecting ingredients just in case I need it in the most peculiar cooking times possible. I started to incorporate seeds, grains, dried fruits, and just about anything healthy I could think of.

Starting at that point, I no longer 'obey' the cookbook to make healthy bread because bread making is an adventure itself. Well, at least for me, a geeky homemaker. I still, of course, go back and forth surfing the net to learn more about making 100% whole wheat bread. Sadly, I found out that to make bread using only whole wheat flour is rather impossible without an ingredient called Vital Wheat Gluten which is not readily available in my city. The role of Vital Wheat Gluten, as the name stated, is.. vital to make sure you have an edible 100% whole wheat bread. You see, wheat flour and other multi grain flour have very low protein content, therefore when mixed with liquid, they will not develop strong gluten strands that are needed to give the raw dough its elasticity and rising power. Without Vital Wheat Gluten you will have a rock hard flatbread. Ciabatta in its truest form (Italian: Slipper). There are other methods as well that work very well but very much time consuming, seriously time consuming, though I plan to try them later on summer holiday.

So, I object to be let down by a mere fact that I cannot get my hands on Vital Wheat Gluten. BooHoo! I just have to be content with half and half. After all, half is always better than none.

I read that to get the health benefit of wheat flour and still retain the shape and the texture of plain white bread, we can substitute 1/3 of the white flour used in a recipe with wheat flour to make bread. Well I say, push the boundaries. Go up to a 1/2 and experiment! I did. The result was awesome. But do not take my word for that. You just have to try it yourself.

Anyhow, enough with my ramblings and let’s get on with this lovely Beet Wheat Bread. This is a very lovely complete meal. In the spirit of pushing the boundaries, I have altered the original recipe and make it vegan by substituting butter to olive oil and omit the egg. The result is.. a Masterpiece, if I could be so bold to proclaim it so.

Ingredients:

-1 tsp instant yeast (make it just slightly less, not level)

-1tsp salt

-1 cup grated beet, or carrot

-1 cup bread flour

-1/2 cup+ 2tbs kraftkorn flour

-1tbs olive oil

-3/4 cup warm water, put in glass, set aside.

Directions:

-Mix flour, yeast, and salt together.

-Prepare your measuring cup and squeeze the grated beet, reserve the juice then put the grated beet in the flour mix.

-Check the level of your beet juice then add water until it reaches 3/4 cup level, add the oil, stir.

-Pour the beet juice-water-oil into the flour while stirring slowly to form a moist dough.

-Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface then knead until smooth but still sticky, about 10 minutes.

-Put the dough into a clean oiled bowl and let rise, covered loosely with tea towel or any cloth, until doubled in size, around 1-1 1/2 hours.

-In this stage, you can either do a free form shape or just put it in an oiled loaf pan.

-Proof again until doubled in size, about 45 minutes

-Bake in the preheated oven, 190C for 45 minutes, cool on wire rack.

Notes:

-I use the beet juice-water because I feel that it is such a waste to throw the lovely healthy juice down the drain. You can use water only, though. But whatever you choose, do not keep the juice and use all the water or your dough will be overly wet.

-If you choose to do a free form loaf, artisan style, make sure you incorporate more white flour while you shape your loaf so the bread will not spread too much in the oven.

-If you make a free form loaf you will get a very nice crispy crust. It won’t happen if you use the loaf pan. But worry not, the taste is impeccable for either shape.

-I use Kraftkorn flour. It is actually a wheat flour mixed with a bit of soy flour and rye flour, flaxseed, soybean grits, sun flower seeds, and medium coarse oats. Don’t you just feel healthy by reading it :) If you don't have Kraftkorn flour at home, don’t be discouraged. Just make your own version. Like I said, be creative. You are the master of your own kitchen. Besides, we are looking for more of the health benefit here. All you have to do is take away 1-2tbs of your wheat flour then replace it with the list of ingredients that makes up the real Kraftkorn flour. Make sure the seeds are coarsely ground.

-If you happen to be real  busy and you don’t have time to wait for your dough to rise until doubled in size, or perhaps your kitchen is very cold, though it is quite impossible if you live where I live, you can cheat. Yes, cheat. I do it too sometimes with the way I make my pao dough rise faster. Prepare a cup of hot, not boiling water, in a bowl that is bigger than the bowl containing your dough, and then put your bowl of dough in.

This bread is utterly, out of this world delicious! Have it toasted and spread your favorite cheese on top or just have it plain. My daughter's favorite cheese is this sun dried tomato and basil fresh cheese. Top it with olives and you will instantly be in Mediterranean bread heaven!

If you have questions related to baking bread or just about any recipe I post on my blog, I would be happy to help you. Please click my Facebook icon up there and ask me via my Facebook page. Have fun baking bread!

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