Sweet teeth--Easy homemade Nougat with Marshmallow

How to make chewy Nougat with marshmallow at home--Super easy version!

I read about this recipe long ago but didn't have chance to try it out. Here comes the holiday season and how wonderful It would be if I can make some holiday themed candy for my friends? Then I instantly think about this recipe. Not only because it is super easy, but also I really missed the Nougat so I can have some "chef treat" from the edges and ends. Let's do that!

Basic formula:
Unsalted butter: 30g
Original mini marshmallow: 150g
Pinch of salt
Fat free dry milk : 90-100g (depends on how soft you want your nougat and what additive you have. And, supermarket brand preferred rather than Nestle, I will explain later. )

You can make endless flavor combinations or design developed from here. This time, to make it holiday theme, I made 3 color/flavor nougat:
Red/white: Cranberry peppermint crunch
Green: Matcha(green tea) peanut
Brown: Mocha pecan

Let's go over the ingredients one by one:
No matter what flavor you make, the butter, marshmallow and salt won't change.


For Red: 
Dry milk: 90g,
Cherry infused dry cranberry 60g (divided to 40+20g. 40g chopped for mixing into the nougat and 20g slightly chopped for topping)
Mini Peppermint sugar cane: 10*, chopped into small pieces

For green:
Dry milk: 80g
Matcha powder: 8g (I bought this in China because it is not so easily found in the U.S.. But I found some online in ebay. also on Nuts.com. The pure powder is quite pricy but the pre-made matcha tea mix also works. So you can use this Matcha tea mix or similar kinds you can bought in Asian/international grocery store)
Peanuts: 80g, toasted and chopped into small crunch

For Brown:
Dry milk: 75g
Coffee grinds: 8g (instant coffee also works)
Cocoa powder: 5g (natural or dutch processed both works)
Pecan: 80g, toasted and chopped into small crunch)

Steps:
You will need a non-stick small skillet pan, a rubber spatula, two pieces of parchment paper, a rolling pin and a knife.

1. In the pan, heat up the butter until just melted

2. Pour in the mini marshmallow and adjust the heat level to medium at the same time, stir and stir until they  are coated with butter. After a couple of minutes, you will observe that the small "puffs" begin to swell.

3. You don't need to wait until every thing is completely melted, just when there is no obvious chunk of "puffs", pour in all of the rest ingredients. Adjust the heat to low and stir quickly.

4.  When there is no obvious milk powder and it will form to play dough-like consistency with a shining appearance. You may need to lift the pan off the heat during the stirring process if you see some crystal like trace on the surface of the dough or there is too much add-in which cost too long to mix. Those are area that lost too much moist and will make the candy over chewy even hard after cooled down. So we don't want it to be heated too long. 

5. Pour the dough onto a parchment paper, cover it with another paper. Roll the dough out with the rolling pin to about 1/4 inch (about 1cm) thick.

5b. For the red or any kinds that you want to put some decorations on top, sprinkle them now and re-roll the top after covered with the parchment paper to "press" down those toppings.

6. Wait for about 10-15min until the dough cooled down to just a little warm. Use the knife to cut into square/rectangular/diamond shape as you like.

7. Further cool them down and store them into jars or Ziploc bags. They will last for weeks but since the nuts tend to become rancid. Don't wait too long. (I am sure you will eat them up before that happened because they are so so delicious!)

Notes:
1. Like I said before that the milk powder is adjustable depending on how chewy you want your nougat. The amount I provided here is on soft side. So they tend to stick together while storage(not solid sticky, just adhere together but still take no efforts to separate them apart). You can add a little bit more milk powder to make them hold their shape better.
2. I mentioned before I preferred supermarket brand rather than Nestle/Carnation milk powder. Because I found the supermarket brand has some bigger powder clusters rather than just super fine powder. This really give the nougat another layer of texture. Slightly crunchy with burst of milky flavor. Yum!
3. There are endless flavor combinations: except for nuts and dry fruits that you can go wild, for flavoring/coloring part. you can choose coconut powder, cocoa powder,  fruit juice powder. Just remember if you add powdered form additive. Decrease some of the milk powder to make sure it's not over chewy. Also I suggest not to go too crazy about powder form additive because the milky flavor is till critical for this candy.

A lonely nougat...

So, Merry Christmas and happy new year everybody!
Have fun!

INdulgent Nonweekend special --Siam Square

INdulgent Nonweekend special --Siam Square 

One of my best friend in collage came to Indy to visit me earlier this week. Happiest day recently! We were all born in Beijing. 

She is now studying in the University of Rochester and she showed so much jealous for "City-feeling" here. It was funny that when we compared several cities, Indy actually did a pretty good job in nearly every way. At least very balanced. From public area maintenance to traffic regulation, from not huge but pretty sufficient grocery shopping choices to high quality dinning selections. I feel more and more satisfied for Indy recently. Maybe I started to have the feeling of belonging here...

Ok, back to the topic. After discussion, we decided to give Siam square a try since she didn't quite have Thai in the U.S. before and it was also a good chance to have a night tour around downtown. BTW, Siam Square is located in Fountain square area, so a little southeastern of downtown.

So here we come!

First of all, except for several pepper/chili based dishes like green curry that I am going to mention later, most of their dishes have spiciness choice: mild(not spicy), medium(default), hot(a small dab of Thai red chili paste), Thai hot(a big dab of Thai red chili paste). Based on my feel, the "medium" is not spicy enough for a spicy lover. But reasonable as a "spicy dish". The "Hot" is just right for spicy lover. "Thai hot"...is...really spicy! But basically the secret is just the red chili paste and you can adjust to taste.

We ordered a Thom Yum (冬阴功) soup which is a featured sour spicy soup in Thai cuisine. If the restaurant can nail down Thom Yum, it passed the very basic test. 

First impression, there are not so many things in it. Compare with the price ($9.5 for a bowl, maybe 3-4 serves), maybe not that valuable. The flavor is ok. Not as complex and sophisticate as the one I had in Beijing. But still relatively refreshing and Thai-like. It just passed I guess..as fair..LOL

We also ordered an appetizer called Chicken Satay ($6.5) which basically has 5 chicken skewers marinated with Thai spices, fried and paired with peanut butter sauce and a pickled cucumber sauce. Sorry I didn't have the sauce picture here.

This tastes really pleasant. The skewer and both of the sauce. Maybe a little bit over sweet? But still within acceptable range. The good thing is it's not heavy at all and the chicken meat (I think they use tenderloin rather than just breast meat which is good!) is quite tender and juicy.

Then comes the entree. My friend ordered the Drunken noodle ($11.95+2 for shrimp) which is suggested by the waitress and I also read about this online a lot. Basically it is tomato-basil intensified Pad Thai. But with really wide rice noodles rather than linguine-type rice noodles (Of course the type of noodle used in Pad Thai depends on restaurant).

It looks really appealing from the appearance, and it also tastes pretty good. Again, maybe a little over sweet. The basil is regular basil rather than Thai basil. Maybe they want to show friendliness to Americans. The sauce is rich but not heavy. The ingredients are quite generous and shrimp is also good.

I ordered the Green curry with tofu ($12.95). For some reason I fell in love with green curry and tofu recently.
It is a coconut milk based soupy dish with bamboo shoot, green beans, basil and green eggplant. It comes with a bowl of steamed jasmine rice.

There are not so many ingredients either, but the soup is quite rich (again, good thing is it's not heavy) so it's ok for portion size consideration. The best serving way is to soak the rice with soup. So delightful!  

Dessert! Dessert! Dessert!

We ordered Thai ice cream with sweet rice ($6. Taro flavor ice cream this time) . They also have coconut and mango choices. 

The purple is kind of too drama because typically Taro flavored stuff is just a tinted purple in my mind. But it is impressive that I can tell this is house-made ice cream because there is still little taro chunks in it! The sweet rice is soaked in coconut milk balanced with slightly saltiness.  Great thumb up for this dish! 

I found it's a little difficult at first to explain the plant Taro to the westerns. It's a root vegetable with the size similar to butternut squash (also varied from 6-inch to 10-inch length-wise). The cooking and eating way is quite similar to sweet potato. So it can go savory or sweet. But it doesn't have strong flavor itself other than really subtle aroma and sweetness. After boiling/steaming, the texture is creamy and starchy just like Russet potato. 

Taro is quite popular as a vegetable in southwestern China and Southeastern Asia. Taro is also a popular flavor all over china and Asia. There is actually mashed Taro in Asian cuisine. And I had Taro flavored ice cream since I was really little and it reminds me of my childhood a lot.

 

The plant Taro！You can buy them in international/Asian grocery store like SARAGA, Asian mart and Viet-Hua market if you are in Indy area. Most of them sell it as fresh produce version (shown in the picture), peeled and vacuumed bag version or frozen version. I preferred vacuumed version.

The ice cream I had since I was really little! Miss it so much....But see the light purple color?

As a summary, Siam Square is a good choice for American Thai. The ingredients and flavor are great. The environment and service is good. A little sweet for Asian taste bud but who doesn't like reasonable sweet?

Talking about Thai restaurants in Indy, actually I tried several ones and here is my ranking list:

1. Thai Spice: 2220 E County Line Rd, Greenwood.
2. Sawasdee: 1222 W 86th St, Indianapolis
3. Thai Taste: 5353 E 82nd St, Indianapolis
4. Siam Square: 936 Virginia Ave (Sorry for putting this far behind because it's still American in my mind)

Another fun fact is: if you pay enough attention to dinning news around downtown area. There is a new contemporary-style Vietnam Sandwich shop called Rook in fountain square area. I visited there when it just opened earlier this year. It is a really artistic place with pretty affordable great taste food. Although Americanize Vietnamese, still definitely worth visiting! I probably will post another review for Rook.

And the point is: I found the Rook and Siam Square actually have the same owner! And their locations are just across the street...

INdulgent weekend--Barcelona Tapas

INdulgent weekend--Sunday Brunch in Barcelona Tapas  Downtown Indianapolis

Last Sunday, I went to Barcelona Tapas in downtown Indy with my roommate. This is the Official Site and the regular Full menu which is available Monday through Sunday for lunch and dinner except for Sunday lunch (which is the Sunday Brunch we went to this time). For weekdays, it also has lunch buffet for $9.95.

It was a snowy day and there were not whole lot of people in the lobby. It was called Sangria Sunday brunch, so there must be SANGRIA!!! This is included in the price and they have options for red and white. The waitress told me the red one is less sweet so I went for this! 

Red Sangria: Pretty good taste! 

With a bunch of cubed fruits like apple, orange, mellon and grape fruit. 

Now for the main dish! They have 4 made-to-order choices and they are all Spanish style: 

French toast, Omelet, Egg benedict and Specials (this time is the Savory and Sweet pancake).

I was attracted by the description of the Omelet and Egg benedict, so here they are! 

Spanish Omelet: 

Bacon, Ham, Chorizo, Grilled red pepper, mushroom, onion, spinach, tomato, Manchego cheese

The egg is a little crispy instead of soft/cloud texture in french style omelet but I like this a lot! The filling slightly reminds me of a Chinese stir-fry type dish but pretty mellow and balance. The cheese is not over-loaded, just the right amount of richness. The chorizo is definitely the star shining here with a good smoky chewy bite. Thumb up! 

Spanish Egg Benedict:

The egg cooked perfectly! The hollandaise sauce is average, has a little spiced flavor but very subtle. Instead of the traditional Canadian bacon, this one has a somewhat softer version chorizo which tastes like smoked sausage. And the English muffin is standard. All in all, this is not as shining as the omelet but still, they did a pretty good job!

Then comes the buffet part! So excited because there are a lot of options:

The cold/salad section which included: spiced candy nuts, coleslaw, potato salad, cottage cheese, green salads, Dried figs/Dates, Green Olives, et, al.

This is my favorite: Curry chicken salad

The warm/main dish section which included: classic American's like 

Spanish classics: Bean stew with Chorizo, Chicken Paella

These two are really delicious, make sure you try them if you come!

Spanish breakfast choices: Empanada, Fritata

The Empanada is good but the Fritata is a little bit salty.

The Cheese plate with cured meat: This is succinct yet really high quality. I am not a pro in cured meat but the cheese is amazing. Freshly cut and mellow aroma. Not too strong, not too shallow, just right!

The far left is the Tortilla Espanola which is also really good!
(if you are a newbie to Spanish cuisine, this is a classic dish in Spain. It is made by layering sliced potato and some veggies/a few meat choice in the iron pan, then pouring in beaten egg mixed with extra spices like paprika plus S&P to cook on stove top. This is also sometimes called Spanish potato pancake)

Meaty corner! Slow roasted top round beef, sorted aioli and salmon sashimi?

The beef taste fantastic! The salmon is a little disappointed. I don't know whether it is supposed to be like this or I missed something, but firstly it is room temperature even a little warm probably because of the bulb. So it ends up to be really greasy. A pretty presentation though. So I probably would recommend putting it by the cold section instead of here. 

BTW, the staff here taking charge of slicing the meat, is super friendly! 

The dessert/pastry section: Sorted fruits, Tres Leche cake, Blueberry muffin and.... 

Jam stuffed Churros!!

I am quite satisfied with the sweet table here. Everything has a really good flavor and high quality over all! 

And this is the first time I tasted a restaurant Tres leche cake. I know it is a really rich cake because the method required soaking the cake in a mixture of sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk and milk (3 diary, Tres leche). But surprisingly, the cake is not overly sweet and milky. It is kind of refresh and have superior moist texture. (Well, that is the reason of soaking...Duh...) But anyways, it is really worth trying!

So, as a summary:

Environment: 5 

Selection: 5

Food: 5

This is definitely a 5 star choice for overall rating. Of course it is a little pricy but I think I will visit back occasionally.  

Dare Connoisseur--Japanese Instant noodle

Dare Connoisseur--Myojo Ippei-Chan Yakisoba Japanese Style Noodles

Today, I am very excited to share this item with you which is a Japanese style instant noodles. I accidentally found this "Ramen Rater" guy who did over 1000 instant noodle reviews from all over the world and generate not only "Big List" which is a dynamic ranking list including all of the noodles he tried but also "Top Ten List" which gives a quick start to some good noodles in different categories.

This Myojo Ippei-Chan Yakisoba noodles is #6 in 2013 top ten list. (The original review). And I was attracted initially by the name which literally means "the late night eating diner in a place called Ippei-chan?" I guess...And "Yakisoba" means both a noodle cooking style and the sauce for this type of noodle dish. (Plus the bold design of the wrap! Thumb up!)

Firstly with some fundamental info:

Available shops (Indianapolis, IN): SARAGA international market, Viet Hua Asian market
Flavors choice: This dark sauce version, and a lighter version which is called "Oriental flavor" (I will show the picture at last.)

Price: $2.99 (Kind of expensive...)
Weight: 135g

Calories: 600

The Ingredients list:

I assume you are generally familiar with instant noodle types. If not, they are basically divided into 3 main categories: Steep (doesn't need cooking on stove top, just pour boiling water and soak for several minutes); Boil (require short stove top cooking, similar to quick pasta) and Dry-stir (variation of steep/boil type but ask for draining the excess water after steeping/cooking, then add the flavoring stuff)

So let's begin!

This is a "dry-stir" steep type instant noodles in a foam tray. 

When I unwrapped the plastic paper, look how Japanese this is! Neat graphic design with clear instruction.  

Peel off one corner, there are 4 packets inside: 

dry vegetable, spice, sauce and mustard mayonnaise. 

Add the dry veggie (As the ingredient list mentioned, it's all cabbage, looked pretty high quality though), pour in the boiling water and close the lid! 

Wait for 3 min...It's time to drain the excess water.

I really like this considerate design of the drain outlet! 

The mesh will prevent noodles and veggies from leaking out.

I add the spice which contained a lot of dried seaweed, sauce which is mainly Worcester sauce and vegetable oil, and the mustard mayonnaise (Pretty standard one. And I only add about 1/3 of the mayo, so don't feel bummed about the tiny portion of mayo showed here. ) 

Stir and Stir!

Here is the finish vision of the noodles. 

I am sorry I happened to hide all of the cabbage, it's actually pretty generous amount.

Analysis in depth:

First of all, this is quite a large portion size instant noodles and actually based on the nutrition fact list, 40% of the calories are from fat. When tasting it especially with the extra boost from the Mustard Mayo which I do feel it is on "rich" side generally. 

But, it has a quite balanced flavor of salty, smoky, sweet, mustard tangy, umami from Teriyaki-type flavored sauce, seaweed scent spice (I think it has black pepper and ginger powder at least. But it only vaguely marked as "spices" in ingredients list.) and the mayo. I think I would give a big thumb up for this one comparing to other "average instant noodles". 

Actually I think seaweed is one secret ingredient in nearly all of the Japanese cuisine for it lending the umami flavor which is basically makes food taste better and mellower. This is also a good idea for our daily life cooking! For example, making meat balls, fried rice/noodle, soup and even bread and savory cake.

For the noodle itself, it's not that stand out but still in really high quality side. As the ingredients showed, it has hydrolyzed protein from some fish which is kinda unique and interesting. This might be the reason for its little chewy texture. Not the gluten-type chewy but meaty chewy. I enjoy it very much!

The cabbage is really good as well! After steeping, they all unwrap and re-hydrate pretty well. They didn't lend a lot flavor but definitely good texture!    

The only little thing that didn't mingle quite smooth is the gingery flavor from the spice. Maybe it means to provide the warmth, but I think maybe should be a little milder.

Summary at a glance:

Overall value: 4.5 stars

Flavor/taste: 5 stars

Worth of the money: 4 stars

Highlight: The Mustard Mayo is definitely the super star here! It gave this Japanese noodle a western swirl and matched really well!

Bottom line: I would buy it again.

At last, the other flavor:
This looks pretty good as well, maybe I will try it sometime in the future

Last of the last: I highly recommend the SARAGA international market. The first one opened in Bloomington, IN. After the big success, the owner opened another two in Indy. One in 38th street and one in near south. (I recommend the 38th street one. Bigger and better) 

It looks shabby at first sight and some of the products are indeed shabby...But, but, there are definitely some hidden gems and not to mention some hard-to-find ingredients if you are a "dare foodies" or "homesick-er in food "like me! LOL...I will have other bizarre reviews of stuffs I bought from here in near future. So stay tuned!

Hope you give this noodles and the market a try. Have fun searching!