Durian Cheesecake / Cheese Tart

I reserved some of the better tasting frozen durian we got from H-mart to make my Durian Cheesecake. The bland ones, I made into Durian Butter Cake. Susanna C emailed me back in October and requested for my Durian Cheesecake recipe I made in February. I had told her that I will share the recipe on the blog once I re-attempt the recipe and make sure the cheesecake will turn out good again!

I’ve probably mentioned it before that I love baking cheesecakes using a tart pan. That way, I will most likely get a nicely baked cheesecake (tart) without the fear of cracks appearing on the surface. Also, I will not feel too overwhelmed with a big piece of cheesecake!

In this recipe, I used about 2/3 cup of durian flesh (Frozen Thai Durian Flesh). Frozen Thai Durians are the only durians I can get in the US and are often not as flavorful as local (Malaysian) durians. Therefore, if you’re using a stronger (more fragrant) tasting durian, you might want to reduce the durian flesh to about 1/2 cup. I would rather eat the stronger, more fragrant, yummier durian than turning it into a dessert. Well, I guess it’s ok if you have had enough of fresh durians! =)

DURIAN CHEESECAKE RECIPE

Ingredients:

Part A (Crust):

• 1-1/4 Cup Graham Cracker Crumbs*
• 2 Tbsp Sugar
• 1/3 Cup Butter, Melted

*Make sure crumbs are finely grounded. Pack them into cups when measuring.

Part B (Filling):

• 2 – 8oz Cream Cheese
• 2/3 Cup Durian Flesh
• 2 Large Eggs
• 1/2 Cup Milk
• 1/2 Cup Sugar
• 1-1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
• 3 Tbsp Flour

Method:

Mix Part A together and press the mixed crumbs onto the bottom and the sides of a 9” tart pan. I use the bottom of the glass to help me press the crumbs.

Blend milk and durian flesh until smooth. Set aside. Preheat oven to 350F.

Cream cheese and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs one by one and mix until smooth. Add in blended durian flesh and vanilla extract. Finally sprinkle in flour and mix batter well. Pour cheese mixture into tart pan. Bake tart for about 40-45 minutes until the center is set. Remove and let cheese tart cool before chilling in the the refrigerator. Serve cold.

June’s Comments: And of course whenever I need / want / am looking for something….. I couldn’t find it! I was unable to find my faithful tart pan to make my cheesecake. I resorted to making individual mini durian cheese tarts instead! Instead of using graham cracker crumbs, I used Sandies Original Shortbread. I greased my regular muffin pan and drop a Sandies shortbread (fits perfect) in each hole. I then pour the batter until the rim and bake it in a preheated (350 F) oven for about 30 minutes. When it’s done, let it cool before running a sharp knife around the inside edge of the muffin cups to loosen the cheesecakes and gently pop the cheesecakes. This gave me about 20 individual cheese tarts.

The use of this shortbread gave me a somewhat thicker (and softer) crust. I think I ended up with equal portions of cheese mixture and crust. This is probably not ideal if you prefer to have more cheese in your cheese tart. Perhaps Nilla Vanilla Wafers would be a better choice for individual cheesecake crust! And I just found out NIlla Vanilla Wafers are too too small for regular muffin pan.

Alternatively, line muffin pan with baking cupsto ensure easier removable of the cheese cakes/tarts.

Egg In The Basket

Egg in the basket is a chicken egg fried/cooked in a hole of a slice of bread. This is truly a cute and creative way to have eggs and toast at the same time. It’s easy to make and wonderful to eat! If you use the right cookie cutter, you’ll just feel the love early in the morning!! As long as you know how to fry an egg, you’re all set to make a wonderful breakfast (in bed?) for your loved ones!! =)

EGG IN THE BASKET RECIPE

Ingredients:

• Sliced Bread (Your choice, I Prefer Texas Toast)
• Egg(s) – One egg per slice of bread.
• Butter
• Salt & Pepper (Optional)
• Choice of Cookie Cutter

Method:

Using your choice of cookie cutter, punch /cut out the design in the center of the bread. You do want to make sure the cookie cutter is not too big and make sure the sides of the bread are still intact. If you do not have a cookie cutter, you could use a scissor to cut out a circle.

In a pan, melt about 1 tsp of butter over medium heat. Place bread (including the cut-out) in the pan and toast the first side until it’s slightly brown. Flip the bread (& the cutout) over the second side, melt about 1-2 tsp butter and crack an egg into the “hole” of the bread. You may want to use a little spoon or knife to guide the egg so that it covers the entire hole in the bread. Season with salt and pepper if desired. Let egg cook until the egg white is less runny. At this point, you could serve it sunny side up style, or flip the bread (and egg) and continue cooking it to either serve it over easy, over medium or over well! Your choice!

My picture above shows one done over well and one done sunny side up. I also cooked 2 sausages in the same pan while cooking the egg in the basket.

Mayo Shrimp

I’ve had this dish at many Chinese restaurants (and I love it!) but have never thought about making it. If it wasn’t because of my baby brother who recently made this dish and posted the yummy pictures and the recipe on his blog, I would have never made it. At least not so soon. I’m SO PROUD of him to be able to cook such yummy dish even though he’s technically not a baby anymore but he’s still my precious little brother who’s 5 years younger than me. Ahh…it still felt like yesterday when I held my new born baby brother in my arms….and that was a little more than 20 years ago!! It’s funny how we both never really cooked when in Malaysia and here in the US, we’ve learnt to cook, bake and experiment with different stuff. Mummy and daddy will surely be proud of our cooking ability now!! =)
Back to the food…. I think this dish goes by many different names at various restaurants…but the dish is the same. The most common name is Mayo Shrimp. I’ve also heard of Salad Shrimp and my brother has a longer name for it “Shrimp with Sweet Creamy Sauce”. In some Chinese restaurants, they even add candied walnut to the shrimp “salad”, thus making it “Honey Walnut Shrimp”.
Here’s the recipe of the Mayo Shrimp my brother found online to which I made some changes to the sauce part. My brother told me that the sauce was too sweet and suggested to reduce the condensed milk. Since I was only making 1/2 Lb of shrimp, I modified the sauce to accommodate to the amount of shrimp I have. 

MAYO SHRIMP RECIPE
Ingredients:
Part A (Fried Shrimp):

• 1/2 Lb Shrimp, Peeled & Deveined
• 1 Large Egg White
• 1/4 Cup Corn Flour
• 1/8 Tsp Baking Soda
• 1/8 Tsp Salt
• 1/3 Cup + 1 Tsp Oil

Part B (Sauce):

• 2 Tbsp Mayonnaise
• 1-1/2 Tbsp Condensed Milk
• 2 Tsp Lemon Juice

Method:
Mix egg white, corn flour, baking soda, salt and 1 tsp oil in a bowl until you get a smooth paste. Pat dry the shrimp and mix them into the paste/batter. Make sure shrimp is well coated with the batter.
Heat 1/3 cup oil in a small pan over medium heat and slowly drop the nicely coated shrimp one at a time into the hot oil. You do want to make sure the oil is at least 1/2” deep. Add more oil if your pan is bigger. Do not overcrowd the pan with the shrimp. Fry the first side of the shrimp until it’s golden brown before flipping them over to fry the second side. This shouldn’t take too long as the shrimp cooks very quickly.
While the shrimp is cooking, prepare the sauce part by mixing Part B in a bowl until well combined. Set it aside. Remove fried shrimp, drain oil and place them in a bowl. Pour sauce over the shrimp and coat well before transferring onto a serving platter. Serve immediately with some white rice. You could also place the sauce on the side instead of coating the shrimp in them!

June's Notes: If you like coconut, check out my current favorite version of Mayo Shrimp here.

Affordable Korean Meal @ Home

During our visit to H-Mart grocery store, we spotted some yummy pre-marinated meat (pork, chicken and beef), Korean style. You know those kind of meat you would order at a Korean BBQ, cost you easily $12 -$25 (depending on choice of meat and how pricey the place is) per plate and that’s usually enough for 1 person.

It has been a while since hubby and I had some good ol’ Korean BBQ…so we decided to pick a choice of pre-marinated meat and cook it ourselves at the comfort of our home. The pre-marinated meat are all pre-packaged individual containers and sold by their weight. Different meat and cuts are priced differently with Beef Short Ribs (Kalbi) being the most expensive. We got a container of pre-marinated pork sliced butt @ $3.99 per lb. For a little more than $5, we got plenty of meat more than enough for the 2 of us. We bought some romaine lettuce to wrap the meat in and a Korean Fish Cake @ $3.99 to try.

We took out our griddle which we’ve used many times to “grill” meat indoors. I cooked some rice,  prepared some vegetables, made some sauce and we’re ready to start cooking!!

 

The pork was so so yummy! Very flavorful (and well marinated), tender and definitely very affordable! We wrapped the cooked pork in a piece of romaine lettuce, over some rice, a dap of homemade sauce and some green onions. Our whole dinner cost us less than $12 and that includes a bottle of beer each!! =) Hubby even had a Korean lunch to take to work the next day!

We will surely go back for their pre-marinated meat. Perhaps we will try other cuts/meat next time. I can’t wait for the next time we have a Korean BBQ party perhaps? This host won’t need to do much cooking this time! Haha!

Durian Butter Cake

Hubby and I bought 2 frozen (Thai) durians the other day and we ended up with one that didn’t taste that great. It wasn’t very “Duriany” and to us it was quite a turn off. Since we’re having a hard time eating a bland durian, I suggested that I make some kind of cake out of it. That way we don’t waste too much of it. I looked online and referred to some of my cook books and found a recipe for Durian Butter Cake. The book was one of many hand me downs from my mom and I’m glad I had a chance to experiment a recipe in that book. This recipe is adapted from Alex Goh’s Creative Making Of Cakes.

The cake was indeed rich and well definitely buttery. The durian flavor wasn’t very prominent I guess largely due to the quality of durian I used in this cake. It could just pass as a regular butter cake with a very (and I really mean VERY) slight hint of durian. I guess if you use a stronger tasting durian, you should be able to taste the durian more significantly!! Perhaps I could add more durian in the cake next time. But this is a very good way to discard whatever extra durian or not so great durian you may have! =)

DURIAN BUTTER CAKE RECIPE

Ingredients:

Part A:

• 120 gm Durian Flesh
• 60 ml Milk (1/4 Cup)
• 40 gm Flour

Part B:

• 250 gm Butter
• 220 gm Sugar

Part C:

• 5 Eggs

Part D:

• 200 gm Flour
• 50 gm Custard Flour
• 1/2 Tsp Baking Powder
• 1/4 Tsp Baking Soda

Method:

Preheat oven to 350F. Blend durian flesh and milk until smooth. Add flour from Part A into mixture and mix till well combined. Cream Part B until light and fluffy. Add the eggs (Part C) one by one to Part B and cream till smooth and light. Then add Part A and mix until well combined. Lastly sieve in Part D and mix well.

Pour batter in a greased 10” round tin or a loaf tin. Bake at 350F for 50 minutes or until skewer comes out clean when inserted.

June’s Comments: I baked mine in a loaf pan for about 1 hour and 5-10 minutes as the cake was still trembling in the middle at 50 minutes.