Challah with Raisins

This is the follow up of the Challah with Raisins.
The Challah turned out as flavorful as the first Challah with Cranberries and Raisins.  The dough developed very well, and it is very tasty.  This is definitely a winning formula.
The original recipe is from:
http://bakingbites.com/2010/09/challah-with-raisins
Qty - 2 Medium size
Or Qty - 1 Large
Instead of making on large Challah, I divided the dough into two.  One for my sister and one for me.

My Ingredients:
1 tsp sugar
1 cup warm (110F) water
1 tbsp active dry yeast
1/2 cup Avocado oil
1 tbsp honey
 3 large eggs
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp salt
3 3/4 cups all purpose flour (and up to 1/4 cup extra for kneading)
2/3 cup raisins
TangZong: 35 g Flour + 125 ml water.  Mix well and heat to 65'C.  Strain.
Eggwash:  1 egg yolk, beaten with 1 tsp water
Knead with Paddle first.  Then after adding all ingredients, change to dough hook to knead. The dough is quite wet the first 8 minutes.  Knead until the smooth dough forms.  Approx.   25 min. to 40 min. depending on your mixer power.

Brush dough with egg wash and Bake.

Stir Fried Asparagus with Shrimps

This is my adventure with Asparagus.  The dish turned out quite appetizing to eat GENZIMAI 'brown rice' with.  But the rice vinegar flavor is a bit overpowering.  Will improve on the sauce the next time.  In fact, tonight, I made creamy mushroom sauce with shallots with Provence spice for the Asparagus spears sauted in clarified butter. 

 

 It was heat through for 1 minutes and found out that it was 30 sec too much for the beautiful green asparagus.  It got overcooked. 

Shrimp Pearl-Balls

Glutinous sweet rice taste wonderful steamed.  Normally, the ground pork is used to make this dish, but I ran out of it, so I tested with shrimps.  Taste??? well, it's missing something, I am not sure what.  I will have to improve on it.  Maybe a dab of fat pork would do?

Form the grounded shrimps into a ball and roll it in glutinous sweet rice.  *The sweet rice is wash thoroughly till the water is clear and soaked in water for 30 min, then, strained well before use. (but not dry).

 Get the steamer ready.  These pearl balls are set in 'steamer' pan on top of the electric rice cooker.  I have never used it to steam anything.  Since it is not mine, it has been sitting in far corner of the kitchen cabinet for many years.  I filled the 'rice' cooking pot section with cold water - half of the pot.  Cover with lid and turn the rice cooker on.  Steam for an hour.  *Never open the lid of the rice cooking pot - well, there is no such thing as 'never'.  But I think if you are raised with rice as staple food, you and I have been told many a times - don't open the lid to check until it is ready

 After an hour, turn off the rice cooker.  Wait 10 min.  Then, open the lid carefully not to let the steam rain down on the pearl-balls.  Set the lid on the lid rester.  The sweet rice should look all translucent.  If your rice cooker has a glass lid, then, just check for translucent rice all around.   I rather cook it long enough to make sure the rice is cooked and internal meat is cooked through.  Uncooked rice is challenging to recook once the heat is turned off; and it usually require additional water, and there is a consequence of rice turning 'mushy'.

 The next day, they turned into my BENTO in mini-cupcake cups.