Red Bean Cheesecake with Matcha Green Tea Powder Whip Cream, Raspberry Gelee, and White Chocolate-Sesame Brittle

Having been so inspired by making my first real dessert a couple weeks ago, I wanted to make another.  This time, I knew I wanted to make a cheesecake, but then thought about the plating as well.  

Plating a slice of cheesecake would just be so blah.  Imagine just a regular slice of cheese cake sitting on a plate.  Yes, it can be appealing because it is cheesecake and there are so many variations of it.  Lets face it, who would not drool over a picture of cheesecake.  I wanted to take it a step further with it.  This was the easy part for me compared to what kind of cheesecake I wanted to make.  I did not want to do traditional flavored cheesecakes so I thought outside the box a bit and went with Asian flavors.  

Red beans came to mind and I know I have never seen a red bean cheesecake because I have eaten my fair share of them.  What I did was, pureed some red beans and sweetened it and mixed it with a basic cheesecake mix.  I was hoping more for a deeper red color, but it turned out perfect because it would have just blended in with the other component of the plate...the raspberry gelee.

Thinking of more Asian flavors, I though of a green tea whip cream.  To achieve different colors ofnthe plate, I turned to matcha green tea powder for color and flavor.  

To go a little bit more of an Asian flare, I melted some white chocolate and added some sesame seeds to it and made a white chocolate sesame "brittle"

The cheesecake was of course prepared the night before for plating the next day.  I had a slight idea on how I wanted it to be plated, but did not expect it to turn out the way it did.  

All the flavors played very well together.  I thought it turned out pretty well considering my lack of experience with dessert!

Asian Braised Short Ribs with Daikon Cake

I recently had beef short ribs on the cruise I was on a couple months ago.  Was highly disappointed, but I have heard so many great things about beef short ribs.  I have been telling myself for a while now that I was going to make it at home, but never remembered to purchase when I am at the market.  

All I knew was that beef short ribs are tough piece of meat and requires a long slow process to prepare.  The other dilemma was what am I going to pair it with to make it a complete dish especially the Asian marinade that I had planned for it.  

The night before, I marinaded the short ribs and set it in the fridge.  I thought long and hard about what to pair the short ribs with.  Then something clicked in my head and it was to make the pan fried daikon cake found at most dim sum restaurants.  I luckily did have a daikon in the fridge that I needed to use and happen to have dried shrimp and Chinese sausage as well in the freezer.  

The daikon cake is a long drawn out process.  I grated the daikon and reserved the liquid and boiled it with some broth, the sausage and dried shrimp.  I let it simmer for a little while to fuse all the flavors together.  As the mixture is still hot, slowly add in the rice flour.  The mixture should be in a way, a very thick batter.  Pour into a mold and steam it for about 45 minutes it.  This needs to be done in advance prior to serving so it cools and sets.  Needless to say, I was up till about 2 AM preparing this.  

The next day after work, I began braising the beef short ribs for about 3 hours.  This was such a tease because I was starving and had to wait for it to braise.  

Once the short ribs are close to being complete, slice the daikon cake into rectangles and pan fry it until crispy on the outside.  

Between the daikon cake and short ribs, it was the perfect pairing.  Typically the daikon cake is served with soy sauce, but paired so much better with the marinade that I used to braise and then reduced to make the sauce.  The sauce was a perfect balance of salty and sweet and paired very well with the flavors of the daikon cake.  The beef short ribs turned out amazing too!  I am officially a believer in beef short ribs if done correctly!  

I could not decide which of the two plates looked better so I went ahead posted both.  I look forward to hearing some feedback on the plating!  

Beef Cooked 3 Ways

I was at my parents a couple Sundays ago.  While we waited for dinner, I ran down the street to TJ Maxx to go plate shopping.  I have been in need of new plates for pictures, but do not have much luck at the stores near my place.  My eyes laid on this one particular plate immediately.  It was a plate that had 3 separate bowls in it.  It was unique.

The next day, I was on a mission to create a dish so I can put this to use.  As I started taking the steaks out of the package, I started of coming up with ideas.  What if I did beef 3 separate ways?  The dinner that night took a while to prepare because I essentially was preparing three different dinners.

First, I cut a small portion and did a pepper crust to prepare the Pepper Steak Nigiri.  The most time consuming part of this was preparing the rice.  The rice has to be cooked then a solution of rice wine vinegar and sugar is added and needs to be cooled down to be "sticky".  The beef was simply seared.  I made a quick ponzu sauce for it.

Second, I thinly sliced the beef to prepare shiitake mushroom noodle soup.  The broth was composed of shiitake mushrooms and a vegetable stock that I had in the freezer.  I quickly cooked some bean thread noodles and laid thinly slices of beef on top of it.  The idea is to have the beef cook by pouring the hot broth over it.

And finally, we have beef kabobs.  I needed a protein to go with it, but wanted to be creative.  We have had a bag of quinoa laying around that we have not used.  On top of that, we have never had it before.  I read the basic instructions on how to cook it and started added my own ingredients to it.  I officially now love quinoa and love how it looks in pictures!

Breakfast Gnocchi

The following day after the Pork Marsala Gnocchi, I once again had some leftover ingredients in the fridge that I know I had to use before I had to toss it out.  I had to get a bit creative with this one because I did not have much to work with.

So I took some of my homecured Asian bacon and started slicing it up.  Cooked it down and set it aside.  With the bacon fat, I sauteed some onions and mushrooms.  I quickly poached an egg for breakfast.  As I started looking at the ingredients I had this great idea.

I know I needed a sauce for the plate, but had not come up with anything.  So then I grabbed the herb infused whip cream from the night before.

My idea was to break open the poached egg and mix the yolk with the whip to create a creamy sauce for the gnocchi.  The idea was executed properly and it was delish!  I will be making this again soon.

Pork Marsala Gnocchi with Herb Infused Whip

A couple Saturdays ago, we had laid around all day and all I did was play around in the kitchen.  A random thought came to mind in the kitchen when I saw some potatoes.  I had made gnocchi about a year ago, but it turned out to gummy because I overworked the dough.  I thought about it and was determined to try making it again but better.  I had taken some pork chops out of the freezer and was only going to make spring rolls with it.  Went a whole different direction with it instead.

The gnocchi was plain fun to make because I only made a small batch unlike the first time.  I did not know what I was doing and made gnocchi for days!  I boiled a couple potatoes and ran it through a potato ricer and started adding flour and eggs until it had the consistency I wanted.

The pork chops were simply seasoned and pan seared just to form a crust and set aside.  Then I thought about chicken marsala and grabbed the bottle of marsala wine and deglazed the pan with it.

 For the herb infused whip, I added parsley, garlic, and chili in some heavy cream and heated it up.  The second it started bubbling, I pulled it off the stove and set it aside to let all the flavors infuse.  I whipped the heavy cream to form a whipped cream.

For some added color, I took some asparagus and shredded it and simply seasoned it.

The dish was unique and flavorful.  The whip and marsala sauce was terrifc.  The whip cream added an awesome flavor from the herbs and made a creamy sauce.