Saturday, July 4, 2009

Lemon goodness

Everyone knows lemons in nature, it's good sense of odor makes us deserve it for more. Although it has a high amount of acids, it has a good benefits too. Peoples used it in their cooking, drinks, and washing agents for a long time ago. Ancient world is believed to have the lemons for their healing works. And now we all knows the very great nature behavior of lemon. What could it do in our daily life? Instead of being used in the kitchen, we can also used it as a main ingredients in a perfumes, detergents and soaps. This means, we almost uses it everyday!
Except for it pure existence form, we could have buy it from the markets, choosing from a bunch of yellow goods which has the size from smallest to largest. I'm quite concern that in my own country in Asian, it seems that we're less likely to be having this fruit, otherwise we uses another form of 'family' of this fruit, which is called a 'kasturi' in Malay. It has a small size, just like the lime, and yet the taste is slightly different from the original lemon. It has a splash of sweet, tangy, and preserve some of the smell of the lemon. This fruit is always used in the Malaysian famous drink, which is called 'Teh 'O' Ais Limau', which is Iced Lemon Tea for instance. Although we are not using lemon, it tastes just as it is what it is. There are some shops that keep selling the original Iced Lemon Tea as well, but many of us deserves the local version. To them, the taste of the original Iced Lemon Tea doesn't suites their tongue due to it's level of acidity that produces the high sour sensation. I believe that in our humidity and climate in Asian, it is best to suit our taste with a more sweety dishes rather than the soury dishes. Look for all type of desserts as well, there are a lot of sugary forms all over the fillings and toppings, like, for example, the 'putu mayam' or 'putu piring', it is compulsary to be served with a brown sugar or it won't be what it is supposed to be. According to our life science, the body of Asians needs more sugar and water during daytime due to it's heavy works on their farmers and planters, as told by the folks. My yesterday watch of the Astro program that shows one program that having the similarities with the other popular shows entitled 'Jalan-jalan Cari Makan' or Find the foods as you travel or simply JJCM, shows that Abon(the popular actor in Malaysia that have the Javanese descendants) is having his Nasi Pecal or Rice served with Vegetable dish, and when he finished it, he told the viewer that he need to go for 'bercangkul'(Farming). This is what our ascendants does for many years behind us. We used to have the high contents of sugar and water in our foods, but we used it back to perform our works in our tradition way. And this traditions has sustained for a long period of time until now, so that, even most of our people tend to work in the office under the air-conditioning environment like now, they still deserving the original kind of foods. This eating habits could becomes a disaster for those who has fully adopt the new lifestyle without preserving the previous one, as they could no longer uses the sugar and starch they consumed, but, if they still performs the culture as what their grandparents does, it will at least balancing their diets.
And, for this so named diet-balancing purposes, I've found one of my favourite tea-time treats which has a western twist, taken from the net, to suit one of our daily office workers who sets their machine just like the modern ways so far.. (This recipe was taken from the http://www.marthastewart.com/website, and this recipe could have a copyright. I just paste it here to let you know what I have been baked so far and what it should look like.)

Fluffy Lemon Buttermilk Cake

Ingredients

Serves 16

  • 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened plus more for baking dish
  • 3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 2 cups granulated sugar
  • 4 large eggs
  • Finely grated zest of 1 lemon, (about 1 tablespoon)
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 1 cup low-fat buttermilk
  • 10 ounces seedless raspberry jam, (1 cup)
  • 1 cup heavy cream
  • 3 tablespoons confectioners' sugar

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Butter and flour a 9-by-13-inch glass baking dish, and set aside. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl; set aside.
  2. Using an electric mixer, beat butter and granulated sugar in a mixing bowl until pale, about 2 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Mix in zest and vanilla.
  3. Mix in flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two batches of buttermilk. Mix until just combined, scraping down bowl as needed. Spread batter evenly in prepared baking dish.
  4. Bake until golden brown and a toothpick inserted into center of cake comes out clean, about 1 hour. Let cake cool completely in dish on a wire rack. Invert cake onto a baking sheet to remove from baking dish; then re-invert so cake is top side up.
  5. With a long serrated knife, halve cake horizontally. Spread jam on bottom half; replace top half. Whip cream and confectioners' sugar in a medium bowl until slightly stiff peaks form. Spread frosting over cake, swirling decoratively. Refrigerate cake 30 minutes. Trim edges with serrated knife; cut into individual pieces and serve in eclair cups.