Alot of readers were asking me about replacing the milk powder, so I tested it and replaced all the milk powder with plain flour. The result is still the same BUT without the milky flavour. It is still delicious and still melt-in-your-mouth if you follow the instructions in the post here. You can also reduce the milk powder if you don't want it to be too creamy but don't forget to replace it with flour!
My other half and myself need something a little spice to go with our rice. Since I made fish soup for the girls, I made this extremely simple side dish for the adults at home :-) We don't eat chincalok very often but this has been our favourite recently as it goes very well with steamed rice. It's usually as a dip with cucumber, winged bean (or known as kacang botol) and other local salad. For this, I added a few dashes of kicap manis and top it on the fried firm tofu. This only took me about 15 mins depending on how many tofu you need to fry *LOL* It is best that you eat it hot.
Since my oven does not have rotisserie function, this little simple gadget comes really handy. I really love how the chicken came out, not that oily as all the fats dripped to the tray. But this one I got is a little small, so I will be getting a slightly bigger one which can hold up to 8 pounds of poultry.
I will probably do another round of roast chicken but with asian flavour.
Happy New Year all !!
I got a small tub of whipped cream, left over from my second's daughter birthday cake which I made recently. Don't feel like wasting it and so decided to use it to make eclair fillings.
For the choux, I used the same recipe as my durian puffs http://quickneasytreats.blogspot.com/2009/07/durian-puffs-2nd-take.htmlbut I increased the eggs to 3. It is recommended that you bake the choux one tray at a time because we do not want to open the oven door during baking as it will cause the choux to flat out.
The filling is really easy because I used instant custard powder. You can make you own favourite custard if you like. Here is the recipe for the filling. For the chocolate topping, I used Alton Brown's recipe because it is very easy. However, you can use any of your favourite ganache recipe for the topping.
Ingredients
Custard filling
100g instant custard powder
150g whipped cream (whipped till stiff)
250g cold water
Chocolate topping
1/2C chocolate chips
1/2t oil
Method
Custard
1. Mix cold water and instant custard and stir till combined
2. Add whipped cream and gently fold till well combined
3. Transfer cream into a piping bag with a regular round tip/nozzle
4. Poke the side of the choux and squeeze the filling till it fills up the hole
5. Do the same for all choux and chill them
Chocolate topping
6. Add the chips and oil and double boil till chocolate melt
7. Take the chilled choux and dip the top into the melted chocolate and serve
Best to eat it chilled.
My kids are not exactly a rice eating bunch. Our meals are usually made up of rice, noodles, bread, pizza, pasta etc etc .. So one of the days when we got sick of eating the same type of noodles, I made fried udon with seafood. This takes less than an hour to make provided you have all the ingredients ready. I usually prefer buying fresh udon as they taste much better.
I love oily fish and cod is one of them. They are not the cheapest fish around but it is sometimes a treat to have them for our meals. I usually buy the frozen ones and normally will either steam or make fish porridge with it. This time round I got a pack of quite huge fillets and it is just a waste to chop them up *LOL* so inspired by a dish I had during lunch at work, I made something simple which tasted just right for me.
Ingredients
2 palm size cod fillet
1 fresh chilli, removed seeds and julienned
2 thin slices of ginger
2 stalks chinese celery
pepper to marinate the fillet
1T fried garlic+garlic oil
Sauce (add more or less to suit your taste)
2T fish sauce
1T light soya sauce
5T water
1T concentrated mushroom stock (I used Woh Hup brand)
Method
1. Mix the sauce ingredients and put aside
2. Marinate the fillet with pepper and let it sit for 30mins or so
3. Prepare a casserole dish and place the fillets into ti
4. Put the ginger slice and chilli on the fish and pour the sauce over, make sure you cover the fillet well with the sauce
5. Cover the dish with either cling wrap or the dish cover
6. Steam in the microwave oven for 3-5 min or until you can flake the fish (I used my steam function with sensor)
7. Once it's cooked, sprinkle fried garlic with oil on the fish and chinese celery and let it sit for 2-3 minutes before serving
Enjoy !
Adapted from here
Ingredients
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.
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.
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 !!
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
I got the recipe from here and I omitted the sherry.
Pure indulgence !!!
For those who are interested, I got the recipe from this site it's in Japanese btw. I was lucky to have found it translated at one site that I was surfing but unfortunately cannot remember which one :-( Please use good quality chocolates and for the cocoa powder, use dutch processed ones.
Ingredients:
195g dark chocolate (I used valrhona 50% cocoa but best is with 70%)
100ml fresh cream
1 Tbsp honey (if you are not using anything more than 70%, you can cut down the honey a little bit if you prefer slightly bitter taste)
enough cocoa powder to coat the chocolates later
Method:
1. Chop the chocolate into small pieces
2. Place cream and honey in a pot and heat it up. Turn off the flame the moment it boils
3. Add the chopped chocolate into the warm mixture and stir till the chocolate and cream are combined (it should look like ganache)
4. Lay baking paper on a tray (covering the sides too), then pour the mixture into it
5. Place it in the fridge for about 2 hours or until firm
6. Remove the hardened chocolate from the baking tray and chop them into cubes with a warm knife blade
7. Coat them generously with the cocoa powder and serve it chilled
This time round, I didn't really have any particular recipe for the fillings. It was just plenty of durian pulp and some whipped cream. Mixed them together and chill it before serving. Make sure you get good grade durians. This is best served chilled also you can even drizzle some chocolate sauce or melted choc to go with it .. yumms
Here is the choux pastry recipe which I used for the durian puffs.
Profiteroles (Choux Pastry)
adapted from Small Cakes from Fondant Fancies to Florentines by Roger Pizey
Ingredients
150ml water
60g butter (I used salted butter)
2 tsp caster sugar
a good pinch of salt
100g bread flour
3 eggs, 55g each whisked - original stated 2-3 eggs, if you are using bigger eggs, you may need less than 3
Method
1. Place water, butter, sugar and salt in a pan and bring to boil making sure butter is melted
2. Add flour and stir with wooden spoon till the dough comes away easily from the side of the pan (you need to cook the flour fully, so try not to hurry)
3. Place dough in a mixer and while beating, add enough eggs slowly to make it suitable for piping
4. Cover dough with cling wrap and leave it to rest in the fridge till it cools
5. Fill piping bag fitted with a large nozzle with cooled dough
6. Preheat oven to 240C
7. Pipe a choux evenly on tray (size is up to you)
8. Place tray on the middle shelf of the oven and turn off the oven, leave it for 15mins
9. Turn oven back on at 180C and bake for about 20-30mins (Do not open the door untill nearly cooked or it will flatten - I took it out when the top turned brown)
10. Remove from the oven and turn out onto a wire rack to cool
I used my trusty thermal pot and cooked this in the morning before I left for work and by the time I reached home, I had a piping hot dish waiting to be served ;-) I still have another 362 to try out ..(actually I have done some other dishes but didn't get a chance to take a picture of them) :-P and pretty happy that my kids are eating them with no complains !
I don't know what to call this dish. This is my all-time favourite easy meal. However, I cannot make this very often because my hubby is prone to gout. My dad used to make this when we were young and I think his tastes better than my mom's *lol* We usually make this when we have plenty of bread (to get rid off) or when mom's not cooking. I love to have this with french loaves .. yummy.
I know that some people don't like sardines because of the smell. I love sardine including the smell *LOL* but adding freshly squeezed lime juice is a good way to get rid of it (be generous). Chillies are optional if you don't like spicy, but for me personally it will not taste as good without them.
Ingredients:
1 tall can sardines, mashed (I like Ayam brand)
1 japanese cucumber, cut into small cubes
1 medium red onion, sliced thinly or cut into small cubes
2 red fresh chillies, thinly sliced, remove seeds if don't want spicy (optionally)
juice from 10 small limes (or more)
Method:
1. Mix them all up
Dump everything on the mashed sardines
Lovely juicey limes
Serve this with hot french loaves .. or sliced bread if you like :-)
I finally took up a challenge to do a large fondant cake (large as in anything bigger than 6inch in size :-P) for my baby brother's engagement. Time is always an issue for me, after coming back from the holidays, I had very little time to prepare - either I was bogged down with work or simply too tired. Initially, I was very sure that I will have enough time to prepare marshmallow fondant, but deep inside I know I need some contingency plan and true enough the store bought fondant saved me. Another issue was with the flowers that I ordered for one of the cake. Unfortunately, I underestimated the time and was not able to get them in time, so took out my backup design and came out with this. This cake was a gift from the guy side to the girl. Pretty couple aren't they :-)
Personally, I like the lilies better :-) On top of the cakes, he also requested for a cuppy set .. well this was easy to make. I used my usually American Chocolate Cake for the cuppies and vanilla frosting .. the flowers again were store bought.
Overall, I enjoyed making them although the rolling and covering the cake with fondant was full of stress .. I was soo scared that the fondant will tear during the transfer, but fortunately that didn't happen. I am now more confident handling it and maybe who knows, I will be a bit more adventurous with it.
Happy viewing !
These are some old food photos that I took during my work trip to Xinjiang. That time, my photo taking skill was still in infancy stage and I managed to took some photos of the food I had. This is only like half of it. There were alot of other stuffs that I did not take because I was just too shy *LOL* The best thing about the food there is the hot pepper that they use, man ..it's hot hot hot but best thing is that it doesn't burn your tummy but more of your lips. The red pepper if I am not wrong is know as 'mala' it is a bit like sichuan pepper but the taste is not exactly the sichuan pepper that I get here. It's different.
We had the pilaf, hand made noodles and kebab for one of our lunch in a local food stall. This is very middle eastern influenced as the owners are khasgar descendants. Loaded with lamb.
these were taken from street eating place. It's clean of course and they have a fantastic array of food
Grilled sotong
I love this chicken dish. This is hardcore mala peppers. It's just shredded steamed chicken with the hot sauce. Yummy but have to bear with the heat for awhile *LOL* Any kind soul out there who knows how to make this??
This is at a restaurant. My lychee dish in my earlier entry was actually inspired from this place.
I love xinjiang. There are soo many places that I can eat because majority of them are Muslims. I also had a chance to eat Peking duck there. It was really lovely. If you are a fruit lover, there are soo many lovely fruits like donut peach, hami melons, watermelons .. lots and lots of them. I wish that I day I can bring my family there for a holiday but I have to pick up speaking Mandarin first *LOL*
I wasn't sure whether my kids would like it but surprisingly they finished it all :-) If you want a thicker coating, coat the patty with egg and breadcrumbs 2x before frying it. This will give the patty a nice thick, even coating that looks like those frozen patties you get at the supermarket. Do give it a try.
Ingredients
500g crab meat (you can use fish or cuttlefish paste or a mix of each of them)
2 medium potatoes, steam and mashed
1 egg, lightly beaten
1-2T corn flour or AP flour
salt & pepper to taste
enough oil for frying
(Coating)
enough breadcrumbs
egg, lightly beaten
flour
Method
1. Mix crab meat and mashed potatoes throughly
2. Season with salt & pepper to taste
3. Add egg and flour and mix till well blended
4. Shape into lemon size balls and flatten it to patties
5. Chill patties in the refrigerator for about 2hrs
6. Place breadcrumbs, egg and flour each into 3 individual plates
7. Heat up oil in the pan
8. Coat patty with flour, followed by dipping into the lightly beaten egg
9. Coat with breadcrumbs, dip into egg again and coat with breadcrumbs a second time
10.Fry patty till golden brown
11.Serve hot with lemon wedges
This is the recipe for the vanilla sponge which is adapted from the book 'A Profit-Making Bakery Shop' by Wendy Kor. I believe this is a malaysian book. It doesn't really matter that the acknowlegdement and some parts of the book is written in chinese, all the recipes are bilingual though. I have tried many sponge recipes and this one is the one that I have been looking for. It could be the milk powder that is being used here that makes the difference. The texture is very soft and compact. No eggy taste and it is fairly white but of course taste is very subjective. My taste and others can differ, it may be good to me but not others :-D
Here goes:
Ingredients:
(A)
150g cake flour/superfine flour
1/2 tsp (2g) baking powder
1/4 tsp (1g) salt
10g milk powder
(B)
60g cooking oil
50g water
4 (75g) yolks
80g castor sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
(C)
4 (150g) whites
90g castor sugar (original 100g)
1/4 tsp (1g) cream of tartar
Method
1. Sift ingredients (A) and put it aside
2. Whisk yolks and sugar till it turns lemon color
3. Add oil, water and vanilla and mix till well blended
4. Add ingredients (A) and mix it slowly till it forms a smooth batter
5. Whisk (C) till stiff
6. Fold in 1/3 of egg white mixture into egg yolk mixture and gently stir, then fold in the remaining egg white mixture and mix well gently
7. Pour batter into a lined 9" round cake tin
8. Bake in a preheated oven 180C for 35-40 mins or till it springs back when touched
9. Once cooked, removed from oven and invert the cake on the wire rack until completed cooled
10.Removed from mould and decorate it
Don't call me crazy but I have been on a mission to find a perfect vanilla sponge cake for creamed cakes for a couple of years already. I have tried many many recipes, not that they are not good but it didn't taste right for me. I know some of the people I know will ask why would I want my cake tastes like those from bakeries? Well, of course I admit that it can be difficult to replicate the taste of those lovelies from bakeries but to me it is a challenge - to be able to make something that is as good as those from known bakeries and not having to rely on sponge mixes *LOL* (simply because they have the closest taste). Neways, back to the topic of sponge cake, I finally found the perfect recipe and I am soo happy that I made it yesterday although I was pretty tired.
Recipe can be found here
The outcome is moist and soft cake. Yummy !!! I frost it with buttercream because I wanted to finish it off and of course, free some space in my fridge .. heh
At the same time, I used the opportunity to use my new gadget, which I actually purchased last year but never had the chance to use it until yesterday *LOL* Don't ask me how much I paid for it because you will tell me that I am crazy :-P But hey, you can grab it at Amazon at a price definitely cheaper than what I paid :-)
This is extremely useful especially weighing small grain items like gelatine powder, yeast, baking powder etc. .. lovely isn't it? (I can't help it, I am a gadget freak *LOL*)
I would like to wish all mothers Happy Mothers Day. For me, mother's day is just like any other days but I do get cards and self-made gifts from my daughters. However, every year, since a few years ago, I will bake a cake for both my mom and mother-in-law. Usually it is something simple and both will have the same design *LOL* This year, I decided to make something different ie. to have their faces on the cake.
This is the cake I made for my mom. It is just a simple chocolate sponge with fresh cream.
I hope that she enjoyed the cake as much as I enjoyed baking and decorating it :-)
The weather has been pretty hot humid for the last week or so. To beat the heat, I made this dessert for our dinner and it was sure heaven *LOL* The pudding was store bought as my fridge currently has no space for me to make one from scratch.
What you need is good mango pudding (cut to cubes), 1 can of fruit cocktail or whatever fruit that you like with the syrup, plenty of ice or crushed ice and enough water to dilute the syrup.
This is the mango pudding that I used for this dessert.
The hubby likes eating waffles with ice-cream, for me, I prefer to have it with jam/fruit preserves. Got this recipe from the manual that comes with the Philips snack maker and I like the fact that it is easier than the ones using eggs. This one uses whipping cream instead but you will still need to whip it till stiff to lighten the texture of this wonderful waffles. Surprisingly even without sugar it tastes real nice and crispy.
