Swedish meatballs (Kottbullar)

Put your hands up if you like Ikea meatballs!

*Raises hands*. I love Swedish meatballs also know as Kottbullar, every time I leave Ikea I would buy a bag of frozen meatballs and a packet of sauce. I also do a quick pit stop at the cafe and have the meatballs as well. Did you know it’s quite easy to make them at home? It tastes even better then the ones from ikea.. Once you made these fresh you won’t go back. These Kottbullars are also freezer friendly, I recommend doubling the recipe and freezing some for a quick meal. This recipe is easy however it does take so time to do. You can make the meatballs the night before (up to step 3) and for the next day after work you can take them out of the fridge and cook them (step 4).

Mixing up the meat mixture

Shaping up the meatballs

End result

Recipe from Good taste Magazine and taste.com.au I have adjusted it a little

Ingredients (serves 4)
1 tbs olive oil
1 brown onion, finely chopped
500g beef mince
1 potato, peeled, chopped, boiled, mashed
1/4 cup fresh breadcrumbs (made from day-old bread)
1 egg, lightly whisked
1 tbs chopped dried parsley
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
20g butter
1 tbs olive oil, extra
2 tbs cornflour
1 1/2 cup beef stock
1/4 cup cream
Mashed potato, extra, to serve (about 4 potatoes)

Method
1. Heat the oil in a small frying pan over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes or until soft. Set aside for 5 minutes to cool slightly.
2. Transfer to a large bowl. Add the mince, potato, breadcrumbs, egg, parsley and nutmeg. Season with salt and pepper. Use your hands and mix well till it is combined
3. Line a baking tray with non-stick baking paper. Roll heaped tablespoonfuls of the mixture into balls. Place on the lined tray. Cover. Place in the fridge for 1 hour to chill.
4. Heat butter and extra oil in a non-stick frying pan. Add half the meatballs. Cook, turning, for 6-8 minutes or until cooked. Transfer to a plate. Cover to keep warm. Repeat with remaining meatballs.
5. To make the sauce, add the cornflour to the pan and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Remove from heat. Gradually whisk in the stock. Place over medium heat. Cook, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until sauce boils and thickens. Add the cream. Cook for 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. If you find your sauce a bit lumpy run it through a sieve before you add the cream
6. Divide mash and meatballs among serving plates. Drizzle over the sauce.

Vanilla Panna Cotta with Strawberry mousse

Who doesn’t love a Panna Cotta? I love pairing them with any sort of fruity element and this time I thought I might try it with a strawberry mousse. I thought the idea was a bit strange but hey it does not hurt to try right? The result turned out just the way I like it. Strawberries are such a perfect pairing especially for a day like valentines day. Since the oven remains unfixed I’m trying to find creatives ways to make desserts and sweets.

Panna Cotta:
1/4 cup of soy milk or milk
250mls of cream
1 gold leaf gelatine
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla paste
2 tablespoons of caster sugar

Strawberry Mousse:
7 strawberries chopped finely or in chunks
1/2 of a gold leaf gelatine
1/4 cup of cream
1 teaspoon of lemon juice

Panna cotta:
1. Heat milk, cream, sugar and vanilla in a saucepan.
2. Soak gelatine leaf in cold water and squeeze out excess water.
3. Add the leaf to the saucepan.
4. Mix and when gelatine is dissolved, turn off the heat.
5. Divide mixture into 2 ramekins or suitable containers. I use two glasses – if using glasses make sure mixture is slightly cooled down before pouring
6. Leave at room temperature until completely cooled.
7. Place panna cotta in the fridge for a few hours or until set.

Mousse:
1. When panna cotta is set. Start the mousse
2. Heat up a small saucepan with the cream in it.
3. Soak leaf in cold water and squeeze excess water, add to the cream.
4. Mix cream mixture and once the leaf is dissolve, turn off the heat and add the strawberries.
5. Divide the mousse in half and place on top of the panna cotta. Wait until cooled then place in the fridge.
6. After a few hours your panna cotta with Strawberry mousse is now ready to eat !

Thanks to Dining with a Stud for hosting the Love at first bite blog hop. I can’t add the linkytool thingy due to free wordpress javascript limitations =(

Also big congrats to Ling to won the Nigella Lawson comp! Thanks to everyone for entering =)

Straits of Malacca & the Grand tofu

Hey guys! I am still alive. I’ve lost my mojo to blog simply because of laziness. I have been limiting myself to eating out less now. I also gotten quite lazy bringing my SLR around and even my point&shoot camera. I’m combining two restaurants reviews in this blog post since both are pretty quite brief. Sadly to update you on the oven it’s still not fixed meaning I really don’t know how I could participate in the sweet adventures blog hop on Monday .

Straits of Malacca

This teh tarik was frothy and good in my terms. Although I have yet to find one that meets the one at Mamak

The stuffed wings was probably the highlight. I can taste the char-ness of the wings and it reminded me of my favourite chicken wings back at Greenwood yumcha North Sydney. Mr himself was quite happy with this version.

Char Kway Teow sadly lacks the wok hei. Wasn’t too bad

I spotted the dry wonton mee on the menu. When ordering the waitress mentions there wasn’t any bbq pork but will be happy to replace it with steamed chicken. I was a little sceptical how this will work but I wanted my wonton mee fix so here we go. The wonton noodles tasted really bland, in fact all I can pick up was the oil and flour from the noodles. In the end I had to add more soy sauce. Another interesting thing is rather then steamed wontons they have deep fried wontons. The wontons were the only plus point of the whole dish itself.

The dry wonton mee comes with a side of chicken soup. Their version is comforting and you can’t really go wrong with a chicken soup.

I am a little too harsh in this review – it was their opening night after all. However I am keen to return for the teh tarik and stuffed chicken wings.

The Grand Tofu

The Grand tofu are famous of their “yong tofu”. Now if you are stumped and haven’t heard of Yong tofu – it is basically a noodle soup with stuffed tofu.

You can pick between 3 types of broths

1. Curry
2. Braised soup base
3. Tom yum

The Yong tofu comes with 6 pieces of items. You can pick your 6 items of “stuffed tofu/fish/etc” and even your noodles. I went with the braised soup base and assortment of the stuff tofu, fishcakes, bean curds & stuffed vegetable. The broth was light but it was good since most of the items included are quite flavoursome. The stuffed tofu was very filling and I was so full afterwards.

Teh Tarik. Nothing too special but still happy to have my fix of teh tarik.

Hor fun – Now this hor fun is something. It was amazingly generous with the seafood and the gravy oh boy where do I start! It was so flavoursome that I had to steal a few spoons of it, Mr himself had to stop me.

I already pestered Mr Himself about returning to The Grand Tofu. Both plus points for good food + good value. The restaurant is really packed on Saturday night.

Straits of Malacca:
247,Chapel street
Prahran, VIC 3181
90778853

The grand tofu:
102 Kingsway
Glen Waverley, VIC 3150
95747676

White wine Sangria

I Dream in Chocolate turns four today. I can’t believe this tiny blog of mine has grown to four years. I want to thank you to my fellow food bloggers and all my readers for your support along the way, I am ever so thankful.

I wanted to bake a cake for the occasion but as previously mentioned in my Shanghai Street post the oven is broken. Instead I made a white wine Sangria. I love the red version but once I tired the white wine version at Flying Fajitas Sisters I was completely sold.

This recipe is quick and simple. It is also so much cheaper when made at home.

White Wine Sangria
recipe adapted from “Delicious” more please by Valli Little

Ingredients
1 bottle of 750 mls of dry white wine such as Sauvignon blanc or Chardonnay
1/4 cup of caster sugar
1 peach chopped
1/2 an apple chopped
1/2 an orange sliced
about 4 strawberries
about 10 mint leaves
1/2 cup of peach schapps or peach flavoured wine (pre-mixed peach drink will work)
ice to serve

* Red Sangria – replace white wine with a dry red wine such as pinot noir or cabernent savignon
* To make this nonalcoholic you can use a sparkling grape juice such as white fronti in replace of white wine, to replace peach wine/schapps add apple juice or peach tea.

1. Combine sugar an wine in a jug or jar. Mix until sugar is dissolved
2. Add the fruit, mint and peach wine/schnapps
3. Stand Sangria at room temperature for 2 hours to infuse
4. Serve Sangria over ice or chill until cold.

I don’t have much to offer my readers but I will be giving away Nigella Lawson’s How to be a domestic goddess.

If you ask me why I choose this book? Because it has been with me ever since I started to bake. It is a book I keep on referring back to – time after again. Although I am not too fond of Nigella’s TV show I am quite fond of her cookbooks especially domestic Goddess. Out of all my cookbooks I have, I seem to cook/bake from domestic goddess the most. I guess it’s pretty much sentimental to me.

To enter:
* You must follow me on twitter @idreaminchoc. If you do not have twitter please subscribe on right hand side
* Please include the right email address. If no response after 14 days. I will redraw the prize.
* Please answer in the comments what is your favourite cookbook and your favourite recipe from it.
* closes 25th of February 5pm. My friend Miss C will pick the best response from her point of view. Sidenote: I am avoiding random comment due to some legal issues surrounding lucky draws.
* It will be shipped from book depository, so please allow time for it to get delivered
* Open to worldwide readers

Once again a big thank you <3

Chocolate Madeleines

Madeleines are simple small cakes originated from north east of France. This is a very easy recipe and does not take that long to prepare and even baked. Two wins in one.

I always wanted a Madeleine tin but didn’t think it was worth spending on. I managed to find this tin in Daiso for 2.80. Of course with such a bargain like that I had to purchased it.

Chocolate Madeleines

Recipe adapted from Donna Hay’s simple essentials “Chocolate”
makes ~ 12 to 15.

Ingredients
2 eggs
75g (1/3 cup) caster sugar
50g (1/3 cup) plain flour
2 tbsp of cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
60g unsalted butter, melted
1/4 tsp of vanilla paste
spray oil to grease

1. Preheat Oven to 180 degrees,
2. Place eggs and sugar in a bowl and whisk to combine. Add the vanilla paste.
3. Sift the flour, baking powder and cocoa over the egg mixture and fold through the melted butter
4. Spray oil in the madeleine tins
5. Spoon mixture into greased tin until 3/4 full
6. Bake for 10 minutes until cooked

Thanks to Hungry Australian for hosting the Death by Chocolate blog hop.