frozen banana cream cake

Got ripe bananas? What to do with them! It seems we never manage to eat them all before they are past their prime. Banana bread is what you make when you have a surfeit of ripe bananas. But because you can never have too many banana recipes I’ve added banana “nice” cream to my repertoire. Now here’s a Frozen Banana Cream Cake, a cross between the aforementioned nice cream and an icebox cake. It has a chiffon cake base but any cake will do, including lady fingers soaked in rum or banana liqueur. The filling is made with bananas and cream then the whole cake is frozen and topped with sliced bananas.

Frozen Banana Cream Cake

Yield: one 6-inch cake

Time: 20 minutes

Chilling Time: 10 minutes

Freezing Time: 6-12 hours

Special Equipment: one 6-inch springform pan

Base

1 6-inch sponge cake, 1-inch thick or use ladyfingers

Syrup

2 tablespoons banana or rum liqueur

1/4-1/3-cup banana water

Filling

3 frozen medium ripe bananas, thawed, save the banana water

250g /1 cup whipping cream

100g condensed milk or to taste

1 egg yolk

1 teaspoon vanilla

Pinch of salt

Topping

1 large ripe banana, peeled and sliced

Chocolate, melted, optional

Defrost the frozen bananas overnight in a sieve set over a bowl. Save the banana water in the bottom of the bowl. Mash the bananas in a medium bowl and set aside.

Prepare the springform pan. Line the base with a parchment circle and the sides with acetate.

Make the syrup. Combine the liqueur with banana water in a small bowl. Set aside.

Line the base of the pan with the cake. Brush syrup generously over the cake. If using ladyfingers, brush each one with banana syrup to soften slightly. Pack them in tightly in the base. You’ll need about 8-10 ladyfingers. Chill 10 minutes.

In a large bowl, and using a handheld mixer on high speed, whisk the cream until slightly thickened. Add the condensed milk, egg yolk, vanilla, and salt. Fold in the mashed bananas, mixing until well combined. Remove the chilled cake in the springform pan from the refrigerator. Pour the banana filling over the cake base. Freeze for at least 6 hours, preferably overnight.

Before serving, remove the pan from the refrigerator. Unclasp the sides and remove. Peel off the acetate. Decorate the top with the sliced banana and, if desired, drizzle melted chocolate on top. Cut into wedges and serve. Keep leftovers in the freezer.

tea party

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I’ve been tutoring an eight-year-old foodie for the summer. To celebrate the end of the session and the beginning of school next week, we had a tea party. It’s been a long time between tea parties with my girl all grown up. So today’s menu was special. It included cucumber rounds and carrot sticks with homemade ranch style dip; ham roll-ups; PBnJ gingerbread-person cut-out sandwiches; and fairy bread. The “tea” is pomegranate juice with Orange Fanta over ice.

The first thing to make is a ranch-style dressing, which can be made up to two days before the tea party. To make one cup, add 3:1 Greek style yogurt to mayonnaise. Add fresh chopped scallions and dill to taste. Season to taste with garlic powder, salt and pepper, and mix. Store in a covered jar in the refrigerator. To serve put two teaspoons of dressing per person in a small cup for dipping. Serving suggestions: carrot sticks, cucumber rounds, sweet pepper strips, celery sticks.

An hour before the party assemble the sandwiches. To make the ham roll-ups, spread a thin slice of ham with cream cheese and top with lettuce and more cream cheese. Roll up into a cigar shape. I make this for adults too, and when I do, I add finely chopped scallion to the cream cheese for a sharper tang.

To make the PBnJ cut-out sandwiches and the fairy bread, use very soft sandwich bread. I used whole wheat here but white bread will do. For the PBnJ sandwiches, spread creamy peanut butter on one side of the bread and jam or jelly on the other. Put the two slices together and press a medium-size gingerbread-person cookie cutter in the center. You might need to use the tip of a paring knife to trim the bread. For variations use other large cookie cutter shapes.

Fairy bread, an Australian birthday treat, is simply three ingredients: bread, butter, and sprinkles, called hundreds-and-thousands in Australia. Trim the crusts then slice into two or four triangles before serving. Fairy bread may be made with cookie-cutter cut-out shapes too.

To make the tea for the party, mix Orange Fanta and pomegranate juice in a jug, about three to one, Fanta to pomegranate juice. Add a squeeze of lemon juice for tartness. Put two slices of orange and two of lemon in the jug along with crushed ice. Serve chilled in little tea cups.

nyonya laksa: noodles in curry broth

Slurp! A bowl of Nyonya Laksa–noodles in curry broth. It begins with a fresh herb and spice paste fried in oil to release its flavors. The fragrance is enhanced with a deliciously generous pour of chicken stock and coconut milk to soften the spiciness. This broth is simply poured over a bowl egg noodles, bean sprouts, shrimp, fish balls, and omelette strips. This dish is one of many recipes representing the fusion of Chinese, Indian, and Malay food ways into the Peranakan cuisine indigenous to Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. Peranakan food can be spicy so reduce the dried chilies to dial down the heat, if you wish.

Nyonya Laksa (adapted from Our Mamas’ Recipes, Cedric Tan, ed.)

Yield: 2 large bowls or 4 medium servings

Time: 60 minutes, not including the chicken stock

For the Stock

2 cups/500 ml chicken stock

125-250g coconut milk

2 stalks lemongrass, white part only

15g dried shrimp

For the Bowls

200g fresh yellow egg noodles

200g fresh small prawns with tails on

2 large eggs, well beaten

100g fish balls

1/2-Japanese cucumber, sliced and shredded into sticks

100g fresh bean sprouts

1/2-cup chopped cilantro or culantro, for garnish

Herb and Spice Paste

25g Chinese shrimp sauce

5 medium dried chilies, snipped into 1/2-inch pieces

75g shallots

7g garlic

7g candlenuts (substitute unsalted cashews, coarsely chopped)

2 talks lemongrass, white parts only, diced into rounds

5 tablespoons rice bran oil, divided

Make the herb and spice paste. In a blender, add the ingredients and blend until a thick paste forms. Set aside.

Make omelette. Heat skillet with 1 tablespoon oil. Pour in beaten eggs. Swirl until set. Remove to a cutting board and cut omelette in half. Place both halves together and cut into thin strips. Set aside.

Make the broth. In a large pot, heat the chicken stock. Add the dried shrimp. Remove the tail shells from the shrimp and add them to the pot. Boil for 30 minutes. Remove from heat. Strain and discard the shrimp tails but return the dried shrimp to the pot and add the fresh shrimp and fish balls to the stock. Let the shrimp steep in the stock until they turn pink. Using a spider, remove the cooked fresh shrimp and fish balls and set aside.

In a large non-stick saucepan, heat 4 tablespoons oil. Scrape the herb and spice paste into the oil and cook until the oil separates and turns red, about 20 minutes. Pour in the reserved stock. Bring to a boil.

Add the coconut milk gradually, at least 125g, or more to taste. Bring to a boil. Taste and add salt. Keep on a low simmer until ready to assemble the bowls.

Assemble the bowls. In the empty stock pot, boil water and blanch the fresh noodles. Drain and rinse so the noodles do not stick together. Divide noodles evenly between the bowls. Top with cooked shrimp, cucumber strips, fish balls, and omelette strips. Divide the hot curry broth between the bowls, ladling broth on top of the noodles and fixings. Garnish top with chopped cilantro or shredded culantro.

cold noodle bowl

Cold noodle bowl aka cleaning-out-the-fridge-night noodle bowl Hidden underneath a base of fresh Chinese noodles topped with: sliced three layer pork, shredded egg omelette, shreds of ham, then dabs of kimchi, daikon pickles, tomatoes, and cucumbers. I pretty much threw in everything but the kitchen sink in dat dem bowl dere. The w’ole t’ing nuh drizzle with a spicy soy-ginger sauce. Inspo from a recipe #justonecookbook I did nyam it off. True fe true.

The base of this recipe is noodles. I used Chinese egg noodles but Japanese ramen would work fine. The toppings can include: ham, turkey, chicken, pork, shredded egg omelette, pickles, cucumbers, tomatoes, celery, bean sprouts, pea shoots, scallions, cilantro. As a rule, the toppings are a combination of protein, vegetables, and spicy and sour pickles. The bowl is drizzled with a Hiyashi Chuka sauce from Nami Chen at Just One Cookbook.

Nami’s Sauce

5 tablespoons soy sauce

3 tablespoons unseasoned rice vinegar

1 tablespoon roasted sesame oil

1/4-1/2-teaspoon chili oil (can use Japanese la-yu) or to taste

4 tablespoons water or chicken stock

3 tablespoons sugar

1/2-teaspoon fresh grated ginger

Combine all ingredients in a small bowl, whisking vigorously with a fork. If not using right away, store covered in the refrigerator.