How you like your omelette?

I'm just wondering how people like their omelettes? Fully cooked and slightly browned on one side? Or like French omelettes – moist, creamy inside?

An ‘English’ croque-monsieur

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

Melted cheddar cheese and bacon on toasted white sourdough, originally uploaded by yongtze.

A croque-monsieur usually has ham and gruyere cheese but I had none so I came up with this very English version of croque-monsieur – Bacon to replace ham and cheddar cheese to replace gruyere cheese. It is nonetheless still a very tasty and satisfying snack. I won’t put the recipe here because there is a great video clip that shows how it is done: "How to make croque-monsieur".

Spotted soda bread

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

spotted soda bread, originally uploaded by yongtze.

This is a quick bread recipe from Dan Brown’s ‘The handmade loaf but I changed the portions slightly.

As suggested by the author, this bread is best eaten in slices when freshly baked with some butter and good fruit preserve. Creamy and slightly sweet, good for afternoon tea.

- 300g flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 60 butter
- 250g milk
- 60g golden syrup
- 60g currants or sultanas or both.

1. Oil and flour the inside of a 12-18cm oblong tin. Preheat the oven to 210 degree Celsius.

2. In a bowl, whisk the milk and golden syrup until combined. Drop the currants or sultanas into the liquid to wet them.

3. In another bowl, combine the flour, salt, and baking powder, rub in the butter with your fingers until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.

4. Pour the liquid mixture into to the dry ingredients and mix. Scrape the batter into the prepared tin.

5. Bake for 20 minutes with a foil loosely covering the top of the tin. And remove the foil and bake for a further 20 minutes, or until the top of the bread is a good golden-brown. Remove from oven, leave for a few minutes to cool and firm. Then remove the bread from the tin and leave to cool on a wire rack.

English milk loaf

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

Milk loaf, originally uploaded by yongtze..

I have been baking quite a lot recently. This English milk loaf recipe is from a book called "The Handmade Loaf" by Dan Lepard, which I borrowed from the City library on Flinders Lane.

It is wonderfully soft inside and slightly tough outside. The strong tough crumb, as the author said, is good at "withstanding the rigours of a child’s schoolbag, or a cheese sandwich that can survive in a jogger’s backpack".

The recipe calls for fresh yeast but I don’t have any so I used dry active yeast instead. As recommended by the book, to replace the fresh yeast with dry active yeast: Take 25% of the liquid from the recipe and heat it to about 40 degree Celsius. Whisk in the dry yeast (half the weigh given for fresh yeast), together with 2-3 tablespoons of flour from the total amount. Leave this for 20 minutes, then use in the recipe as if using fresh yeast

I have also converted some measurements from weight to cups/measure spoons in case you don’t have a kitchen scale at home. However, for baking, it’s highly recommended to measure the ingredients by weight as it is more precise than using volume.

- 1 1/2 teaspoons fresh yeast, crumbled
- 350ml whole milk
- 20g golden or maple syrup (about 3 teaspoons)
- 500g flour, preferably those with high gluten content (about 3 3/4 cups)
- 1 1/4 teaspoons salt
- 25g warm melted unsalted butter

1. In a large bowl, whisk the yeast with the milk and syrup. Add flour and salt, and squeeze the lot together with your hands until you have a soft sticky dough and the flour and liquid have combined well. Pour over the warm melted butter and mix well with the dough.

2. Cover the bowl and leave for 10 minutes.

3. Rub 1 teaspoon of olive oil on the work-surface and knead the dough for a quick 10 seconds, ending with the dough in a smooth round ball. Wipe the bowl clean and rub with 1 teaspoon olive oil, return the dough to it, cover and leave for 10 minutes. Repeat this light kneading twice more, at 10 minutes intervals, then leave the dough for 30 minutes.

4. Grease and flour a loaf tin. Divide the dough into two equal pieces and shape each into a ball. Drop them side-by-side intro the prepared tin, cover with a cloth, and leave to rise for about 1 1/2 hours, or until almost doubled in height. (A good place for rising: Turn on the oven for about 2 minutes, and turn it off. It should be just warm enough for a good rise)

5. Preheat the oven to 210 degree Celsius. Brush the top of the loaf with a little milk, and bake for 15 minutes, then lower the heat to 180 degree Celsius and bake for a further 25-30 minutes, or until the top of the loaf is a shiny dark brown. Remove from the tin, and leave to cool on a wire rack.

Easiest breakfast: oat with honey and roasted almond

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

Easiest breakfast: oat with honey and roasted almond, originally uploaded by yongtze.

I’m starting to eat oat for breakfast for all the obvious health reasons like high in fibre, rich in beta-glucan that helps lower cholesterol re-absorption, which is good for the heart.

However, it’s not just for the good health. I found that I actually like it. It’s warm and creamy – I like eating warm food in the morning. And you can add anything you like with it, like roasted almond here.

For best taste, roast the almond yourself. Get raw almond from the market, just roast it with a skillet over high heat for a few minutes until you can smell the fragrance. Simple but really nice.

Omelette with chive on toast

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

Omelette with chive, originally uploaded by yongtze.

Fast breakfast for weekday -  Take less than 2 minutes!

Cheese omelette on toast, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, and red onion salad with cucumber flavoured vinaigrette

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

Cheese omelette on toast, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, and red onion salad with cucumber flavoured vinaigrette, originally uploaded by yongtze.

This was saturday breakfast. To accompany the cheese omelette, I made a little salad.

For the dressing:

Serve 1.

Just peel half of a cucumber, 2-3 cherry tomatoes cut in half, quarter of red onion thinly sliced. Mix together. Serve with dressing.

Dressing:
- 1/2 teaspoon white wine vinegar
- 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
- 1/4 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
- salt and pepper to taste
- juice from a quarter of cucumber
- 2 teaspoon olive oil

Mix vinegars and lemon juice, cucumber juice and salt. Slowly drop in olive oil and blend vigorously. Some pepper to taste. Pour the mixture into a screw-top jar and shake to blend the mixture well.

The cucumber and cucumber juice give a very nice freshness to the salad. I like it, even in winter.

Scrambled eggs on toast, mushroom and tomato

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

Breakfast, originally uploaded by yongtze.

This is a Gordon Ramsay’s recipe. I like the simplicity of cooking the whole mushroom and tomatoes with low heat slowly without turning them.

Scrambled eggs, everyone likes scrambled eggs. It is very easy to prepare but people tend to overcook it or just don’t get the right consistency they want.

- Beat the eggs into a saucepan, together with cold butter.
- Cook the eggs over moderately low heat.
- Don’t stop stirring, you can stir it with either a rubber spatula or a wooden spoon. Just don’t stop stirring.
- Keep the saucepan on and off the heat, say, 5 seconds on the heat and 5 seconds off the heat, and on the heat again. WHY? The saucepan will retain the heat and the temperature keep rising as you heat it. So if you keep heating it, the temperature will rise too much and the eggs will cook so quickly that you won’t get the right creamy consistency you want.
- As soon as they are of the right consistency, remove from the heat completely. Stir in some cream to cool down and stop the cooking process.
- Season with salt and pepper. Fold in either some chives, spring onion, parsley, or smoke salmon or whichever you see fit.