One Pot Chicken Casserole

The haze coming from Indonesia has gotten bad to worst. Most of the families are trying not to be outdoors and that would means more home cooking. :P So I can totally understand when someone (like me) having to think what to cook 3 meals for a few days in a  row at home, it can get a little draining. A simple one pot dish is definitely a good idea. Less mess and less washing for sure! Plus I have been meaning to put up this Chicken casserole / Chicken stew recipe for the longest time. An easy dish that I always go back to every now and then. You can twig parts of the recipe by substituting some of the ingredients, but the "base" ingredients and technique are pretty much the same. 

Toast up some good baguette and you can mop up that delicious gravy from the dish. And this time I used Le Creuset's 26 cm Cool Mint Buffet casserole pot to cook this dish. Yes, all the cooking done in this casserole pot itself, brilliant isn't it!

Personally I love this buffet casserole pot. 26 cm diameter pot seems like the perfect size for my 4 pax family needs. It is approximately 3 inches tall, not your usual cast-iron pot height, but still deep enough for frying too. Easier to store and the wide flat cooking surface is good for cooking dishes like risotto or even pan searing two steaks at one go. Hopefully I can get to work on these recipes as well soon! 

In the meantime....Chicken casserole! Let's have a run down what are the required ingredients for this dish. ;)

Ingredients for One Pot Chicken Casserole  (serves 3-4 adults)

2 whole chicken legs
2 whole chicken wings
3-4 smoked sausages or any sausage link of your preference
1 large onion, diced
3 garlic, peeled and minced
1/2 cup thawed frozen green peas
1 medium carrot, peeled and cut into bite size
2-3 russet potatoes, peeled and cut into large chunks
4 stalks celery sticks, cut into bite size
8-10 cremini mushrooms, cut into 4 sections 

Thickening rue : (not shown in pic)
3 tbsp unsalted butter
4 tbsp plain flour
400 ml homemade / store bought chicken stock (not shown)

Salt, pepper and sugar to taste.

• After you have rinsed the chicken pieces, drain them dry and season well with salt and pepper.

• Add about 1 cup of cooking oil in the buffet casserole over medium low fire. Prepare some plain flour + 1 tsp baking powder to coat the chicken pieces for frying. Mix the flour well then coat the chicken pieces and dust off extra. Gently drop them in the preheated cooking oil to fry.

• Repeat till all the chicken pieces are coated and placed into the cooking oil to fry. Fry at medium low temperature and making sure you do not burnt them.

• Remember to turn the chicken pieces and fry on both sides. Each sides takes about 6-8 minutes to fry up till golden brown. No worries if some of the blood oozes out, usually happens when you uses frozen chicken pieces. Remove the chicken pieces and drain over paper towels for use later. Personally I feel this frying of the chicken pieces is quite an important step, so do not skip it. It helps seal the juices and flavours of the chicken.

• Drain away the frying oil. It is okay that bits of the meat is "stuck" at the base of the casserole. Once you add in your next ingredient (onions), it will slowly render off. Those bits are gonna help flavour your dish, so please DO NOT scrap them away. Add in the chopped onion and 1 tsp of olive oil over medium low fire and stir to cook.

• Cook till the onions starts to soften. Give the base a slight scrap to release the bits of meat. Next add in the sausages or bacon, whichever you fancy. These salty flavourful meats will boost that extra depth in flavour in the chicken casserole. 

• Cook the sausages for a couple minutes. Add in the chopped vegetables ; potato, celery and carrots. Cook for 5-6 minutes till the vegetables are half cooked, stirring constantly.

• Add salt and fresh ground pepper to the vegetables. Cook for another 2-3 minutes. Add in the cremini mushrooms and sweet peas in. Cover the casserole and leave it to cook for 2 minutes. The mushroom will cook down on its own. 
• After 2-3 minutes, open the cover and give it a quick stir. Now you can start making the rue which will thicken the whole dish. Place the cold butter right in the center of the hot casserole and let it melt down.

• Once the butter is melted, add in the 3 tbsp of plain flour and cook over that "Pool" of melted  butter. Stir to cook the flour and butter mixture. Make sure the fire level is at low, and do not burnt your ingredients. 
• The flour butter mixture will start ti bubble a little. At this point, stir in the chicken stock. Slowly drizzle in and stir as you pour to mix well.

• Bring the whole casserole to a gently boil. At this point, you can season a little more. Salt, sugar, pepper, then stir well. Lastly, add in the fried chicken pieces.

• Cover the pot and let it simmer for a good 13-15 minutes at low fire. Till all the ingredients "marinate" each other's flavour and taste. Off the fire and let sit covered for a good 30 minutes. Yes marinate further with the heat retained by the casserole pot itself. 

Well if this doesn't spell comfort, I don't know what does. Thick flavourful gravy coating the tender soft chicken. And those soft vegetables are just irresistible too! Whether you prefer to have this chicken casserole with steam rice or toasted bread or just plain alone on it's own, I can guarantee you will enjoy every bite of it.

The buffet casserole did make this dish an ease to prepare. Everything done with in it, no fuss no hassle, easy peasy. And that cast iron pot did retained the heat super well. Reason  said that is after I cooked it for 1.5hrs, it was still warm and nice.

Hope you guys love this simple chicken casserole one pot meal. If you decided to try this out, do drop me a comment as well, either here or at IG @Honeybeesweets.sg, appreciate it. Happy cooking!

Do what you love!

Casey Munoz's

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Panda Buns (Cheddar and Cream Bread Recipe)

So recently I have been seeing quite a number of Japanese bakers coming up with really cute bread bun designs. The bread buns are really so cute that you wonder if they will ever be eaten at all. (Might end up playing with them instead!) Being the practical me, I often question myself when it comes to whether I should spend such time to make these all too cute bread buns. If I ever do it, it'll be considered a luxury! But again, I have been into bento sushi art lately as well, which also consume quite a fair bit of my time....~haiz. Anyway, the Panda Buns I baked are considered easy, plus it is monochrome! Only 2 colours, how hard is that haha! I wanted to use my trusty White Bread Loaf recipe to make this so as to reduce the stress level. But opted to try a new recipe in the end because I'm always keen to new ones! So here is my Cheddar and Cream Panda Buns. 

Okay I admit...I got lazy and didn't read up more about the temperature control part. But it was 10pm and I was ~yawn~, you get the idea. :P And hence the suntanned pandas were borned. :P Or should I say oven-tanned pandas. A friend then alerted me that I should have reduce the temperature to a low 150C, even though it did came across my mind before baking. But the thought of undercooked gooey bread is just too overwhelming that I went ahead with the oven tan anyways....Haiz again~. However, other then that golden hue on these bears, I have to say it did turn out quite well! Agree? (Self-nodding.... -_-")

So if you do want to attempt this out, feel free to use my White Loaf recipe and bake at a low 150C for 30-35 Minutes and see how it turns out. But bear in mind I did not use this White bread loaf recipe to attempt this at 150C, so I cannot advice you on anything. :) OOOooooorrrrr....you can hold that thought, come try out this Panda buns using the same Cheddar and Cream recipe like here at 170C. It's straight dough too,....read on!

Ingredients For Cheddar & Cream Bread recipe (makes 8" x 8" square loaf buns)

350 g bread flour

1 large egg (48-50 g)

100 ml fresh milk

3 slices of Kraft cheese (~60 g)

85 ml heavy cream

1/2 tsp salt

40 g caster sugar

5 g instant active yeast

25 g unsalted butter room temp

1 tsp charcoal powder (I bought mine from Kitchen capers)

1 tsp egg wash (for the eyes and nose to adhere to the dough)

• In a sauce pot, add in the milk, cheddar cheese and cream cheese in. Heat it at medium low heat, and stir well till mixture melts. Set aside to cool before use.
• In a mixer bowl, add in bread flour, egg, salt, caster sugar and yeast. Pour in the cooled cheese mixture.  

• Beat the mixture till the dough comes together. Continue to mix, it will be sticky at first but just continue to mix with time durations of 5 minutes mix, 5 minutes break and repeat. The dough will eventually become less sticky to the touch.

• You can add in the room temperature butter and continue to beat the dough. It will then finally pull away from the sides and become very elastic.

• Remove the dough and grease the bowl. Place the dough back in and let it proof for 1.5hrs or till it doubled up in size. Like seen below:

• Punch out the air and knead the dough a little. Divide out 16 dough portions of 40 g. The remaining dough is set aside for use later.
• Roll the 40 g dough portions round and place them in a 8" by 8" greased square pan.

• Continue till all the dough portions are rolled and placed in the pan. 
• Next you add the charcoal powder to the remaining dough that was reserved earlier. It should weigh about 60 g if I remember it correctly. Knead well till the dough is uniformly black.
• Pinch pinch out about 1.5g to 2 g worth of dough and roll it round. Then place 2 of these small round black balls on the top of each dough portion in the pan. These will be the ears of the pandas.

• Repeat till all the ears are made and placed on top of the buns. 
• Using your finger tip, carefully rub the place where you will be placing the eyes and nose on the buns.

• Preheat the oven to 175C right before you are going to work on the eyes and nose portion of the Pandas.
• Next, pinch about 1 g of the black dough and press it flat till it is oval shaped. Carefully place the oval on the dough top to make the eyes. Pinch a small bit of the dough to make the nose. Note that all these are rough estimate of the dough, I feel it is too much of a hassle to weigh out such a tiny portion of the dough. So just try your best to make a rough gauge on the eyes and nose bread portions. Repeat till all the eyes and nose is made.

• If the buns has already been fully proofed like showed above, bake it in the oven for 26-28 minutes covered with aluminium foil (yes I covered but till browned  :P). 
• Once baked, remove from the oven. Also carefully remove the buns out of it's pan so it can cool over the rack completely before eaten.

I am glad the eyes and ears and noses (except one) were still in tact when I removed the buns out from the pan. :) So the egg wash does help to adhere the dough nicely. I shall make sure I use a lower temperature next time at 150 C and see if it really stays white and pale!

The texture? Let's see....

What do you think? Nice right?! I am pretty please with it myself too! Soft and with a slight bite to it, just like the way I enjoyed my breads. Although it might not be as soft as my White loaf bread recipe, this bread still radiates a nice creamy, cheesy aroma. If you like a stronger cheese, please by all means, use that. And do let me know how it turns out for you. ;) Last but not least, hope you have fun baking these pandas, I know I sure did. 

I can't wait to try out another fun shape...what do you suggest?? 

Okay, I gotta go guys, thanks for reading!

Remember, do what you love and stay happy!

Hokkaido Custard Milk Tarts

My baking experiment continues with Hokkaido Fresh Milk....of course. That luscious dairy is just calling out to me to try out more bakes with it. But it should not be just any bake, it should be something that can bring out that creamy rich flavour of the Hokkaido Fresh Milk. My usual choice would be a light steam cake which calls for dairy milk. So I tried, but that didn't came out with an evident milky flavour (Yes..I experiment bake all the time). Will share with you all next time when I get the chance, But for now, success calls on this recipe instead: Hokkaido Custard Milk Tarts.

What better way to enjoy the milky goodness than these pastry tartlets containing creamy milk custard using the Hokkaido Fresh Milk? And guess what, baked custard definitely intensified the milky flavour. Yummy.

Pairing the milky custard with flaky, buttery pastry crust is just perfect. I made the pastry crust just thin enough to hold the custard and yet won't dominate the taste of the tartlets. And thus the custard flavour can "shine" through. I have opted to use egg whites only in the custard recipe, so it took on a lighter and purer shade of cream white. 

Let's get started on the ingredients shall we? You will be happy to know that most of the ingredients can be found in your pantry. Even Hokkaido Fresh milk is now readily available at your nearby Fair Price Finest.

Ingredients for Hokkaido Custard Milk Tarts (makes 8)

Sweet pastry dough:

150 g cake flour
60 g cold unsalted butter, cut small
45 g confectioner's sugar
2 egg yolks (40~45 g)
1/8 tsp salt

Method:

• In a large mixing bowl, add in the cake flour, powder sugar and salt. Using only your finger tips, rub the cold butter into the flour mixture. Alternatively, use a mixer to combine the ingredients till it resembles bread crumbs.

• Next add in the egg yolks and gently work the dough but not over kneading it. Over kneading the dough will make it hard and not flaky.

• Chill the dough in plastic wrap for at least 30 mins till ready to be used.
• Grease the mini tart tins. After 30 minutes chill, take out the dough and divide it into 8 equal portions, about 35-36g each. 
• Weigh out each dough portion and place them in the greased tart tins. Use your fingers to gently press in the pastry dough to shape it nicely to the tart tin. Repeat till all the pastry doughs has been shaped.

• Put them in the fridge until needed. Proceed to make the milk custard filling.

Hokkaido Milk Custard filling

1 tsp condense milk 

Pinch of salt 

200 ml Hokkaido Fresh Milk

100 ml heavy cream

40g caster sugar

1 vanilla bean pod, split and scraped

1 tsp cake flour sifted

2 egg whites (~80 g )

• Preheat the oven to 170C.  
• In a saucepan, pour in heavy cream, sugar, salt, scrapped vanilla bean seeds and its pod. Turn on the fire to low and stir to cook mixture till the sugar has melted.
• Once the side starts to bubble, remove from fire and sift in the cake flour. Whisk it well.
• Next add in the Hokkaido Fresh Milk to the mixture. Mix well.

• Stir in condensed milk and egg whites as well, mix well. Next, sift in cake flour and egg whites. Whisk throughly again.Remember to use a whisk to whisk it thoroughly. If you still see tiny lumps, it is okay, you will sieve it off later.

• Strain the mixture leaving only the vanilla pod and membranes of the egg. 

• Divide the custard filling equally among the chilled pastry tart shells.

• Bake the milk tarts in the preheated oven for 20-22 minutes or till the custard is slightly firm to the touch or not wobbly. 

• Remove from oven and let cool on the rack completely. Gently remove the tarts from the tins by carefully inverting the whole tart and using the palm of your hand to catch it.

Another way to make the milk custards without the hassle of baking the pastry shells will be steam baking it in baking ramekins at perhaps 140-145C for 25-30 minutes. But that will be another try out, another recipe. ;)

Love that whitish colour from the custard. You can of course opt to use egg yolk in the custard. Just replace one egg white with 1 egg yolk. But bear in mind my recipe calls for 2 eggs exactly, yolks for the pastry and whites for the custard. 

You can now easily get Hokkaido Fresh Milk at any Fair Price Finest for $6.45 per litre. Whether it is just for consumption or for baking breads (check out my Hokkaido Milk Bread here!) or baking these delicious creamy Hokkaido Custard Milk Tarts. You should definitely give this great dairy product a try. 

I have grown rather fond of this Hokkaido Fresh Milk and not sure if I can go back to normal milk after all these days of drinking it! But again, I strongly believe quality is more important and quantity. Giving your family and your body the best is essential to having a healthy and happy life.

Till we bake again, do what you love!

Purple sweet potato butter cake

It is almost like an alarm clock in the body. I would naturally crave for some butter cake or poundcake like bakes time to time. Do you get that too? Yes, I love chiffon, I love tarts, I love pastries, but somehow the lure of buttery soft cake keeps coming back for more! Although having the good old traditional butter cake is the best, I still enjoy explore and experimenting different ingredients being incorporated to it. And this time is none other then one of my favourite sweet potato...not just any, but that sweet and pretty purple sweet potato. And so Purple Sweet Potato Butter Cake is born!

The addition of the root vegetable has made this cake not only more moist, it also gives off that sweet potato aroma and flavour when you eat it, especially when it is warm. So love! If you love pumpkin too, you can try it with that. But keep in mind that pumpkin has more water content verses sweet potatoes, so the result might end up a wee bit different perhaps.

For now, let's look at this Purple Sweet Potato Butter Cake recipe and see what it consist. :)

Ingredients for Purple Sweet Potato Butter Cake (makes a 8" by 8" square)

150 g sweet potato steamed + 50 ml coconut oil 

•  Blend the two together until smooth. Set aside for use later

Egg Yolk Batter

5 egg yolks (~73-75g)

60g caster sugar

200 g salted butter at room temperature (Or unsalted butter with 1/2 tsp salt)

200 g cake flour

Egg White Batter

5 egg white

100 g caster sugar

1 tsp fresh lemon juice

• Preheat the oven to 155C. Prepare a steam bath in the bottom rack so you can so a steam bake later. Grease and line a 8" by 8" square pan with parchment paper. Set aside for use later.
• In a large mixing bowl, add in the yolks and caster sugar. Start whisking till it thickens and doubled its volume.
• Next place the softened room temperature butter in, whisk it in in gently to the yolk batter. The batter will be thick and creamy.

• Now you can add in the blended sweet potato and coconut oil puree. Again, give it a good whisk to combine thoroughly.
• Last, add in the sifted cake flour. Whisk well again.

• Next, whisk the egg whites in another mixer bowl. Add in the lemon juice  and then gradually the caster sugar and continue to beat till stiff peaks.

• In 3 separate portions, add in the egg whites to the egg yolk batter, folding gently each time and careful not to deflate the egg whites.

• Pour the batter into the prepared baking pan, spread it evenly. At this moment, you can choose to bake it as is or put on the extra sweet potato cream topping swirls.

Swirl Topping (optional)
100 g sweet potato + 60 ml heavy cream

•  Blend the two together until smooth. Set aside for use later

• Scoop spoonfuls of the sweet potato cream puree over the top of the cake batter. Then using a tooth pick, run it through the batter to create that swirl effect.

• Steam bake the cake in the preheated oven for 55-60 minutes in the water bath till the cake tester or toothpick comes out clean. 

• Once baked, carefully remove from the oven and place over a towel. Remove the cake from its cake pan and cool on the rack completely before slicing. Enjoy!

See...it's not that complicated right? Although I did add sweet potato in both the cake batter and as a topping. I think it adds that extra oomph and sweet potato intensity to it.

With the addition of coconut oil, it really brings out the coconut fragrance. A little goes a long way! And that purple sweet potato cream swirls not only beautifies the cake appearance, it also adds that creamy sweet potato bite, which is like a bonus every time!

A close look at the soft cake texture of this special butter cake. :9 It is not dense at all, moist and fragrant and also buttery rich that leaves you satisfied. Or maybe you're like me...I can't resist having 3 slices at one go... oops. :P

If you decide to give this a try, try making it ahead and let the cake rest overnight. I personally feel the cake taste better the following day. Just like any butter cake, the taste mallows out and somehow makes it more rich in taste and flavour the following day. Like magic...taste like magic too. Don't take my word for it, get your baking apron on and try it yourself. ;)

Okay guys, signing off now. Hope you all will like this recipe and drop me a note if you did try it ya? 

Remember, do what you love and stay happy!