#testrecipe

Test Recipe 01

The Inspiration

Base Recipe: King Arthur Flour Sourdough Discard Cracker Recipe

The original plan was to use chicken bouillon powder to make these sourdough crackers because I love savory, flavorful crunchy things. I miss these Petit Brunch chicken crackers from my childhood. They’re like Chicken in a Biskit, but way better because the layer of chicken seasoning is a layer INSIDE the crackers. 

Instead of just seasoning the exterior of the crackers that caused the seasoning to come off on your fingers (another one of my big peeves), I was inspired by these childhood crackers to season the dough instead.  

Much to my dismay, I no longer have chicken bouillon powder in my pantry, but I did find something far more intriguing – Tom Yam Bouillon. 

Knorr’s Tom Yam Bouillons Cubes – I bought this in Singapore, and haven’t seen this in the US (but then again, I haven’t sought it out in the US either). 

I expected the bouillon cubes to be pretty salty, so I only added half a seasoning cube to the dough and did not season it further with salt. The cube was grated with a microplane over the dough to break it up for a better distribution, then kneaded the dough to disperse it more. 

I wanted to add some fresh, bright notes to the crackers next – Kaffir lime leaves! Alas, I did not have that on hand. I did however, have curry leaves in my freezer, so I grabbed those instead. I chiffonaded the leaves, rolled out the dough, scattered some on a third, folded the dough over, scattered another layer, folded the dough etc, then kneaded it in so the leaves were layered throughout, then rolled the dough, scored it and threw it in the oven to bake. 

The Verdict

Flavor: 7/10

The Tom Yam flavors weren’t noticeable at all other than a wee bit of heat on the tongue. That said, the crackers weren’t bland. My guess is that the MSG in the bouillon provided sufficient seasoning despite the absence of anything distinctly Tom Yam.

The curry leaves on the other hand, brought a great flavor profile and that left me yearning for more. It triggered some memories of an indian fritter/cracker (??? a pakora perhaps? a papadom? some other fritter?). At some points, it also triggered memories of my favorite dish from back home that utilizes curry leaves – oatmeal prawns – a oatmeal crusted shrimp stir fry that’s popular in zi char stores back in Singapore. Which then leads me down the path of salted egg stir fries as well, which was an evolution of the oatmeal prawns dish when the salted egg craze came around.

Next Iterations

1) Indian Flavor Profile The flavors of the indian profiles were most inspiring after this test batch, so I would like to pursue that more. Perhaps along the lines of some of this flavor profile/recipe – Indian Pakoras by Saveur Magazine. I can already imagine the depth of rich warm flavors dancing on my tongue, off-set by the cool, sweet, refreshing chutneys that I think in itself, would require more experimentation to figure out how to incorporate that element into the crackers.

My gut tells me it’s just Cumin seeds i’m missing so that’s prob the first thing I’d try.

2) Stronger Tom Yam

3) Oatmeal Prawns flavor profile I’m thinking it’s missing the buttery-ness and sweetness. Would probably try using butter instead of coconut oil this time as the fat source for this recipe.