TherMe: QQ Homemade Fishballs with Only 3 Simple Ingredients

Credits to Sew Chin for perfecting & sharing this fantastic fishball recipe!!

Attempted the fishball recipe in 'Perfection with Thermomix in 7 Days' once but tweaked it slightly & the texture didn't turn out as gd as expected. Thus, I automatically assumed it could be due to the fact that I didn't follow the recipe exactly. However, a few other gfs tried it as well & they found it unsatisfactory too. After trying the ones done by Sew Chin, all of us fell in love with it so we decided to try it ourselves too ;)

Ingredients (1/2 portion):

250g fresh yellowtail fish meat, aka 豆腐鱼 in Cantonese (preferably bought the same day)

230g of water (90% of fish meat)

1.5 tsp pink Himalayan salt

A small bowl of salt water (to wet hands)

A big bowl of ice water

1200g of water

Directions:

1. Fillet the fish from the skeleton then scrape off all the flesh from the skin, in the direction towards the tail.

2. Put both the fish meat & 230g of water into mixing bowl. Blend for 20s / Speed 9 then scrape down the sides & repeat the process again (a total of 3x if preparing a full portion)

3. Next, knead for 30s / Dough Mode (increase to 1min for full portion). Transfer fish paste to a big bowl & set 1s / Turbo followed by 1s / Reverse / Turbo to spin out the residual paste for easy removal.

4. Add in salt to fish paste & mix in evenly till the watery paste curds (becomes harder to mix).

5. Wet both hands with salt water so fish paste won't stick as badly. Put some fish paste onto palm & make a fist. Next, use thumb to gently smoothen top part of paste then slowly squeeze the paste out into fishballs of desired size.

6. Dip a spoon into the salt water then use it to scoop out each fishball from hand before putting into the bowl of ice water to soak for at least 2.5-3 hours (depending on how salty u like them to be) for the extra salt to dissolve inside the water or else the fishballs will be too salty. 

Variation - u can also use the fish paste (without soaking) as fillings for beancurds, green / red chillies, lady fingers, tau pok etc to make your own yong tau foo. Note that while the paste might b a bit salty, we still find it palatable cos the saltiness is balanced by the 'hosts'. 

7. If you intend to store in the fridge overnight, discard the water used to soak the fishballs. Before cooking, add some water to separate the fishballs 1st.

8. Pour 1200g of water into mixing bowl, insert simmering basket then put on the lid to cook 10mins / 120°C / Spoon Speed.

9. Pour the fishballs (seperate into 2-3 batches) through the lid's hole then cook 10mins / 100°C / Speed 2 till they float. Actual cooking duration may vary slightly depending on the size of your fishballs so reduce or extend accordingly. Repeat for the remaining batches.

For non-Thermomix readers, you can still follow the steps & pictures to blend your fish using your normal blender but u may need to allow for additional blending time accordingly, depending on the power of your blender's motor. Then, u'll have to manually 'slam' the meat repeatedly (at least 60-70 times) to achieve the 'QQ' texture.

The texture of the fishballs are almost identical to that of their commercial counterparts but without all the additional flour / additives etc. Even my mum who does her own fishballs the tradtional way told me they're bouncy! One of the main reasons why I love my Thermomix is I'm able to do most of my food from scratch, just like how our grandparents / parents used to do, but in a more efficient & hassle-free way. 

TherMe: Black Sesame 'Chiffon' Cake

Credits to Isabel for teaching this yummy cake during one of the meetings & my cooking kaki for her notes <3

Ingredients:

List A

100g black sesame

100g unbleached plain flour

100g yogurt

60g organic raw sugar

40g cooking oil

7 egg yolks

5g sesame oil

1 tsp baking powder

List B

70g organic raw sugar

7 egg whites

1/2 tsp cream of tartar (will personally prefer to replace with 1 tsp of lemon juice)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 160°C. Pour sesame into mixing bowl & grind 1min / Speed 10 (accidentally poured in the sesame oil too so blended both together..luckily it turned out alright..hee).

2. Add in remaining ingredients in List A then blend at 30s / Speed 6. Transfer to big bowl (skip this step if u've an extra mixing bowl).

3. Wash mixing bowl & dry thoroughly or use another mixing bowl if u've. Insert 'butterfly' whisk b4 putting List B's ingredients in to whip for 4mins / 37°C / Speed 4. Transfer to another big bowl.

(Note: added another 1min / Speed 4 to get a better whipped texture. Can try increasing 1/2 - 1min each time till u achieve stiff peaks if u prefer a fluffier chiffon)

4. Fold A's batter into B's egg white mixture in 3 batches & transfer to a chiffon tin.

5. Bake for 45mins or until a cake tester skewer or toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the centre of the cake. 

6. Invert the tin immediately on a cooling rack then let it cool completely. Remove tin, cut & serve.

For non-Thermomix readers, you can still follow the steps & pictures to grind the sesame using your normal blender & beat ur batter in a normal mixer but u may need to allow for additional preparation time accordingly.

(Note: Do check if ur blender is able to grind dry ingredients. If it can't, you may blend it together with the sesame oil but the sesame may not be ground as finely, depending on the power of ur blender.) 

Simply love the fragrant of this cake <3 Even though the texture differs slightly from normal chiffon cakes, the moistness of it more than compensates for that!