Raisin & Dried Mango Rice

This dish is inspired by a recipe in last month's Women's Weekly magazine. The original recipe is supposed to be cooking the rice with the ingredients, but I change d it to a fried rice version since I have some leftover rice to get rid of.

I used 7D dried mango slices because that is the best for me at least. The original uses golden raisins but I just replaced it with what I have.

Ingredients
2-3 cups cooked rice
2 tbsp olive oil/butter/ghee
1 medium onion, sliced
1 large clove garlic, chopped
1 chicken stock bouillion
1/2 tsp ground clove
1/2 tps ground cinnamon
drice mango slices, chopped into small pieces
1/3 cup raisin
chopped coriander
salt & pepper
salmon slices or other meat slices
A bit of water

Method
1. Heat wok and add oil/butter/ghee
2. Fry onions till translucent and add chopped garlic, ground clove and ground cinnamon, fry till fragrant
3. Add salmon slices or other meat slices and stir till cooked
4. Pour a little bit of water to the onion, garlic & fish mixture
5. Sprinkle a bit of pepper and add chicken stock and stir till well combined
6. Add cooked rice, stir well
7. Once the rice is coated with the spices, add raisins and dried mango
8. Stir raisins and mango till well distributed and let the rice cook further
9. Throw in chopped coriander, stir and serve

Indian Rojak

I have been wanting to make this for the longest time and finally made it simply because I got attracted to the gravy recipe. This recipe is Asmah Laili's recipe but I adjusted some of the ingredients. I also omitted the colouring since I don't have red/orange colouring. The ingredients is entirely up to you, you can add or omit some of them if you don't like them.

Gravy

Ingredients
500gm sweet potato, wash clean and steam or boil till soft
1 tbsp oats, ground till fine
50ml ketchup
1.5 tbsp sesame seeds, roasted
1.5 l water
a bit of orange colouring (optional)
5 dried chilli
a slice of pineapple
2 green apple
1 red apple
2 tomatoes
2 clove garlic
1 cm ginger
2-4 tbsp brown sugar
salt to taste

Method
1. Grind dried chilli, pineapple, apples, tomatoes, garlic and ginger into paste and put aside
2. Grind steamed/boiled sweet potatoes with water and pour into a pot
3. Add all the ingredients except sesame seed into the the pot and stir till the gravy starts to boil
4. Once gravy starts to boil, add roasted sesame seeds. Make sure gravy is not too thick or too thin
5. Add sugar and salt to taste and adjust accordingly to your taste


Dough

Ingredients
500g all purpose flour
3g instant yeast
1/2 tsp salt
500-600ml water
1/2 tbsp tumeric powder

Method
1. Sift flour with yeast, tumeric powder and salt into a bowl
2. Pour water a little at a time till the batter becomes like a fritter's batter.
3. Cover bowl with cling wrap and leave it to proof for about 2.5hr - 3hr or till double in size
[This dough will be used for some of the rojak ingredients ]


Rojak ingredients without dough - deep fried and drain oil well
2 firm tofu, cut into 4
4 tempe, coat with a bit of tumeric and salt
4 fish cake
4 hard boiled egg
2 boiled potatoes


Rojak ingredients with dough
1/2 cup grated coconut
2 hard boiled eggs
2 boiled potatoes
2 tbsp sesame seed
2 firm tofu
some prawns
a bit of orange colouring (optional)


Method to fry dough ingredients
1. Heat oil in a wok/pot
2. Divide dough into 4 parts

1st part of dough
----------------------
- Fry it into balls

2nd part of dough
-----------------------
- Coat the hardboiled eggs and sprinkle some sesame and fry till crispy
- Coat the potatoes with the dough and sprinkle with sesame and fry till crispy

3rd part of dough
----------------------
- Coat tofu with dough and put one prawn and fry till crispy

4th part of dough
-----------------------
- Add grated coconut and sesame seeds, shape into strips and fry till crispy


Garnishes - cut/slice into bite size
salad leaves
onions
green chilli
cucumber

Sweet Bun Dough (2)

I have tried numerous sweet bun dough recipe I got from the internet and this is one of the better ones that I have tried in terms of taste and softness (overnight). Looks like the trick is the amount of butter used. I have tried a similar recipe which is about the same only that it uses half cream cheese and it is as good too.

This time, I made pinwheel pizza bread. The filling is a regular pizza filling with pizza sauce, sausages, cheese and herbs.

I have to thank Lynna and also the original contributor of this recipe (Roshayati Johari). I halved this recipe and made some slight mod to the liquid.

Ingredients
(A)
250g bread flour
50g sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
15g milk powder
2 tsp instant dry yeast
(B)
100-120ml water (add 100ml first than slowly add if dough is too dry)
27g egg (if using cream cheese, omit the egg)
(C) **
20g butter 20g shortening/cream cheese

Method:
1. Mix well all ingredients in (A)
2. Add (B) into (A) and knead till smooth
3. Add (C) and continue kneading till smooth and shiny and dough does not stick to your hand. 4. Leave to prove for 60 minutes or double in volume
5. Punch down the dough lightly to let the air out
6. Divide the dough according to the weight you wish, shape into balls and leave to rest for 10 minutes
7. Shape accordingly and leave to prove for 40 minutes - 1 hour
8. Brush with egg wash
9. Bake till golden brown
10.Once taken out of the oven, brush with egg wash again for extra shine

** I have tried combination of butter+shortening and butter+cream cheese. Both yield similar softness but cream cheese give more flavour.

For those using breadmachine, put all the ingredients according to the manufacturer's instruction and select the dough cycle. Leave the dough to further proof for about 45min after the end of the dough cycle.

Banana Bread

This is a very easy to do banana bread but very delicious. The original recipe was contributed by Iris from KC. I made some slight changes to it. This one does not need to use mixer, just hand power is enough. Great when have it with a hot cup of tea, English/Earl Gray would be nice.

Ingredients
1/2 cup oil (vegetable or corn oil)
slightly less than 3/4 cup sugar (can use brown sugar)
2 eggs
4 medium, ripe bananas, mashed (if using del-monte like bananas, 2 is enough)
35g toasted, chopped walnuts
40g sultanas (can omit this if you don't like it)
1/2 tsp banana essence (optional)
185g self-raising flour, sifted
1/4 tsp salt

Method
1.Preheat oven to 180 deg C
2. Grease and line a loaf tin
3.Beat oil, sugar, essence and eggs well
4.Fold in mashed bananas, nuts and sultanas
5.Fold in flour and mix well
6.Bake for 45-50 minutes or till done when skewer inserted into cake comes out clean

To make it look more presentable, you top up the bread with cream cheese frosting. You can make this a day before but remember to frost the cake after the cake is cooled.

You can make variation with this frosting by adding abit of lemon juice or orange juice or other essence that you like ;)

Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients
1 (4 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup sifted icing sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence

Method
1. In a medium bowl, cream together the cream cheese and butter until cream
2. Mix in the vanilla, then gradually stir in the icing sugar
3. Store in the refrigerator after use.