Chewy Chocolate Chip cookie (Alton Brown)

This is my family ultimate favourite chocolate chip cookie. The dad and girls love chewy cookie but for me I am more for crunchy ones. This doesn't last very long, usually 1 day or 1.5 days tops. The recipe yields quite a big dough so I usually keep them in small portion and freeze them. Bake them as and when I need. It's dangerous to bake them a big portion because the cookie jar will be forever glued to them *LOL*

The dough will be a bit sticky. So it is advisable to refrigerate the dough before baking. This makes handling easier and you also don't want to end up with real flat cookies. Don't overbake the cookies as this will make them hard when cooled. Once you see the edges turned brown, you can take it out even though the centre seemed soft. Remember, this is chewy cookie not crunchy ;-)

Adapted from here

Ingredients
220g unsalted butter
2 1/4 cups bread flour*
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/4 cups brown sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 Tbsp milk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla essence/exract
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (use the regular chips and not mini ones to give some height to the cookie)

* Do not replace bread flour with plain flour because the extra protein in bread flour gives the cookie a chewy character.

Method
1. Heat oven to 180C
2. Melt the butter in a heavy-bottom medium saucepan over low heat
3. Sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda and set aside
4. Pour the melted butter in the mixer's work bowl
5. Add the sugar and brown sugar
6. Cream the butter and sugars on medium speed
7. Add the egg, yolk, 2 tablespoons milk and vanilla extract and mix until well combined
8. Slowly incorporate the flour mixture until thoroughly combined and stir in the chocolate chips
9. Chill the dough, then scoop onto parchment-lined baking sheets
10.Bake for 14 minutes or until golden brown, checking the cookies after 5 minutes, rotate the baking sheet for even browning
11.Cool completely and store in an airtight container

Review: Dessa Sambal Goreng paste

This time round I am going to review the sambal goreng paste which I got from a local supermarket. I am not exactly a great fan of off the shelf paste but there are exceptions when I am either to lazy to buy the ingredients for the paste or running out of time. I was intending to make sambal goreng but changed my mind last minute due to some last minute chore that I have to attend to. So with the ingredients I have, I decided to go ahead making it but using a ready made paste. This is fairly straight forward, you need to fry all the ingredients like beancurd, tempe, beef lungs, prawns, meat etc first, then with very little oil, fry the paste till the oil separates a little. I added a bit of tamarind pulp and abit more water. You can add abit of coconut milk but not too much as it will alter the taste. Then add all the ingredients and let it simmer.

The outcome, taste wise, it is not bad.

I don't see any msg in the ingredients list but that doesn't mean it doesn't contain any. So far I didn't feel thirsty eating my sambal goreng and I can safely say that it is pretty alright. I don't mind buying this again if I am pressed for time.

Seafood and Beef Noodles

I made this for my guests who came for eid celebration recently. On a day like this, I will try to prepare something that is simple so that I will have time to sit and chit chat with them. This is best serve when it just out of the wok :-)




The choice of noodles is entirely up to you. I chose hokkien yellow noodles and bee hoon as my kids prefer this compared to kway teow.



Ingredients:
1 packet hokkien yellow noodles
1 small packet of bee hoon, soaked
1 pack chye sim, cut into small pieces
chinese cabbage, cut into small pieces
fish cake, sliced
200g prawns, tail-on and precooked
200g beef slices, marinated with pepper and corn flour
5 cloves garlic
1 inch ginger
3T oyster sauce
2C or more water/stock
salt & pepper to taste
corn flour paste (add 2 tsp flour with a bit of water) as thickener

Method:
1. Preheat wok with 2T of oil
2. Blend garlic and ginger into paste
3. Stir fry ginger and garlic paste till fragrant
4. Add salt while sauteing the garlic/ginger paste
5. Add sliced beef and stir fry till it turns grey
6. Add 2 cups of water/stock and let it simmer till beef is tender
7. Add the oyster sauce, salt & pepper to taste
8. Add sliced fish cake, chye sim, cabbage and simmer till they are tender
9. Pour in the corn flour paste and stir till well blended
10.Lastly add the noodles and stir till all the ingredients are blended nicely
11.Serve hot with fried shallots and chilli pickle

Tuna melts

My kids love this, an alternative to the old boring tuna sandwiches that they usually would have on days when I am super lazy *blush* It is extremely easy if you buy all the ingredients from the wrap to the shredded cheddar cheese *LOL*





Ingredients:
Tortilla wraps
Canned tuna or whatever filling that you like
Shredded cheddar cheese

Method:
1. Heat pan
2. Place one wrap on the heated pan let it warm up
3. Spread some filling to on side of the wrap
4. Sprinkle cheese and leave it for a minute, once you see some of the cheese starts to melt, fold over the wrap
5. Press it lightly so that the edges will stick
6. Flip it over to heat the other side
7. Serve it warm with ketchup or chilli sauce

Enjoy !

My kitchen and baking corner

Ok, I know I am lagging .. been busy with ramadhan and eid. Only now I managed to get some space to update this blog. This post has nothing to do with food but just sharing with you my space in the kitchen where all the cooking and baking are done.

This is my kitchen long and narrow. Sometimes can be a little dark which is not a good thing but otherwise it is alright.

And this is where most of the baking/kneading/decorating action happens :-) Sorry about the mess, baked a chocolate cake yesterday night and the place looks a little bit messy.

I do have a couple of things which I have done over the months and I will update them pretty much soon .. !!!

Thank you for your patience =)

Yong Tau Foo sauce

It's been a while since I last update, Ramadan is here and during this time I am always busy *LOL* I did have some things that I would love to upload but not there just yet. In the meantime, I would like to share one of my favourite dish but the emphasis here is not about the dish but rather the sauce. I made this quite sometime back but didn't manage to update it here.

Nothing beats a good sauce for yong tau foo. So I searched the internet and look at what other food bloggers came out with for their sauces and I used it as base for me to try. I was quite surprised that the taste came out just right for me and personally I find this pretty close to what I get at food courts.

It's a very simple recipe, all using ready made sauces unless you are the kind that makes your own chilli sauce :-)

Ingredients
2Tbsp hoisin sauce
4Tbsp chilli sauce (use either Heinz or Sinsin. Do not use maggi chilli sauce), add more if you like it more spicy
2Tbsp oyster sauce
a bit of water

Method
1. Mix the first 3 items till well blended
2. Add a bit of water little by little to get the consistency that you like but not too much
3. Sprinkle sesame seed if you like

Enjoy !!

Yeast-free Banana Cinnamon Roll

Last week was a hectic one for me. The girls were falling sick one after another and I had to work from home to take care of them. It was very stressful as I could not get our of the house *LOL* Couped up with sick girls was no fun at all but I made myself happy by doing this in-between my busy schedule.

As usual, my dad bought another bunch of bananas and I got like 4 of them left and they were very ripe. I was craving from some cinnamon roll but was feeling a bit impatient to do a yeasted one. Searched the net and found this one that fit the bill. Despite it being easy, I was very happy to say that they were good !

The full recipe can be obtained from here I didn't follow the filling recipe to the T. I just estimated the amount of brown sugar and cinnamon powder to my taste.

Ingredients:

Filling
brown sugar
cinnamon powder
bananas, chopped

1. Mix the brown sugar and cinnamon powder and put aside

Dough
2C all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1 Tbsp granulated sugar
1/2C (1 stick approx 110-112g) salted butter, melted
3/4C fresh/UHT milk
Flour (for rolling)

Method

1. In a large bowl, combine the flour, salt, baking powder, and sugar
2. Mix milk, melted butter together, with a spoon, stir in the butter+milk mixture to the dry ingredients and mix for 1 minute or just until it forms a smooth dough (the dough will be a bit shaggy at first, mix it gently till the dough doesn't stick to the bowl)
4. Turn the dough out onto a floured counter and roll it into a rectangle about 9 by 16 inches.
5. Spread the filling mixture on the dough, leaving a 1/2-inch border around the edge
6. With your hands, gently roll up the dough, starting at one long side. At the end of the roll, press the seam to seal the roll and cut into 12 equal pieces with a serrated knife
7. Arrange the pieces evenly in the cake pan and bake the rolls in a preheated 180C oven for about 25-35 minutes or until firm and golden
8. Frost with icing and serve warm

Strawberry Chiffon with White Chocolate frosting

Another way to get rid of fresh strawberries ... made strawberry chiffon cake and had it frosted with white chocolate frosting. This was made for my pil and bil during one of our regular monthly visit. The sweetness of the white chocolate blended well with the slightly sourish strawberry chiffon - nice combination :-)

Beef Stroganoff

I love beef but seldom cook them because my kids don't fancy them that much. But I could not resist buying some after seeing some nicely sliced stir-fry beef at the supermarket. After much thought, I decided to try making stroganoff and I was soo happy that the girls love it but they didn't eat the beef of course *LOL* There are loads and loads of stroganoff recipes in the internet but this particular one caught my eye because it has tomato juice added. I love tomatoes as it adds flavours to some dishes especially certain creamy ones. In this picture you see specks of white - those are sourcream which I forgot to stir before I threw them into the gravy :-P But looks can be deceiving, this was delicious.

I got the recipe from here and I omitted the sherry.