Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Fish Fillet with Ginger and Spring Onions

A quick stir-fried dish for our dinner.

Ingredients :

2 pieces of fish fillet - cut into bite size pieces
2 stalk spring onions - cut into 1" lenght
6 slices of fresh ginger
1 red chili - slice

Marinate :

1 tbsp of Chinese cooking wine
1 tbsp of soy sauce
1 tsp of sesame oil
A few dash of pepper

Sauce :

1 tbsp of cooking wine
1 tbsp of soy sauce
1 tsp of corn starch
4 tbsp of water
salt and pepper to taste


1) Marinate the fish and set aside
2) Combined all the sauce ingredients in a bowl and set aside
3) Heat up the wok with some oil and stir fry spring onion, ginger and chili until fragrant.
4) Add in fish fillets and stir fry gently to avoid breaking up the fish.
5) Once the fish changes color add in the sauce and stir until sauce thicken.
6) Check seasoning and serve immediately with warm rice.

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Best Brownies

Diana and I baked some brownies for her University Accounting Club bake sale 3 weeks ago. We cut and packed everything for the sale . So I decided to bake some for us a few days ago. The one for the bake sale we added butterscotch & chocolate chips and for this one I added chocolate chips, walnuts and some fudge topping.

Ingredients :

1/2 cup of butter (1 stick)
1 cup of sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp of vanilla
1 tsp of instant coffee
1/2 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup of flour
1/4 tsp of salt
1/4 tsp of baking powder
1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup of chopped walnuts

Fudge ingredients :

4 tbsp of butter
3 tbsp of unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tbsp of honey
1 tsp of vanilla
3/4 cup of powder sugar
1 tbsp of warm water (optional)

Baked 2 big trays for the bake sale


1) Pre-heat oven to 350 degree F. Grease an 8" square pan.
2) In a saucepan melt the butter. Remove from heat and stir in sugar, eggs, vanilla.
3) Add in cocoa powder, instant coffee, flour, salt, baking powder, chocolate chips and walnuts. Stir well until combined.
4) Spread batter into prepared baking pan and bake for 25-30 minutes. Do not over bake.
5) To make frosting combined all the fudge ingredients and mix well. Frost brownies while they are still warm.
6) Cut into squares and serve with fruits or ice-cream or on its own.

All cut and packed ready for the bake sale.

Note : Be sure your melted butter is not too hot before you add in the sugar and eggs. If not you will end up with scramble eggs. You can add 1 tbsp of warm water to the frosting if is too thick.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Chicken Varuval

My old office used to be at Brickfields and for lunch my colleagues and I like to go for Indian food. As you all know there are plenty of good Indian restaurants at Brickfields. One of our favorite place to eat is the corner kopitiam near the river bank. I forgot the name of the Kopitiam. We really like the banana leaf rice there. In my opinion they served the best Indian food. One of our must order dish is their Chicken Varuval and fried fish. Their Chicken Varuval is dry, almost paste like gravy and extremely spicy. I tried cooking this dish here and I got this recipe my ex-colleague and is the simpler way of cooking Chicken Varuval

Ingredients :

1/2 chicken - cut into small bite size pieces
1 pcs of cinnamon stick
2 cardamoms
1 pcs of star anise
1 tbsp of black soy sauce
10 curry leaves
1/2 cup of water (optional)
Sugar, salt and pepper to taste

Blended ingredients :

2 medium size onions
5 cloves of garlic
2" of ginger

To make into paste

2 tbsp of curry powder
2 tsp of chili powder
2 tsp of tumeric powder

1) Heat up oil and add in cinnamom stick, cardamons, star anise and curry leaves. Stir fry for a few second until frangrant.
2) Add in the blended ingredients and sautee until it turn light brown.
3) Add in the curry paste and stir fry for a minute.
4) Add in the chicken and stir fry until chicken well coated with the paste. Add seasoning.
5) Add in black soy sauce and a bit of water if chicken get too dry. Cover and simmer slowly until chicken is really dry and done.
6) Check seasoning and serve warm.

Note : I didn't add any water because the chicken I used discharged lots of liquid. You can reduce the amount of chili powder if you want it less spicy.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Orange Raisin Cake

I made this really moist and flavourful cake for breakfast last week. Just mixed all the ingredients together and in an hour you will have a cake for breakfast or tea.

Ingredients :
(adapted from : http://momsrecipesandmore.blogspot.com/)

1 3/4 cup of flour
1/4 tsp of baking soda
1 tsp of baking powder
1/4 tsp of salt
1 cup light brown sugar
1 cup of raisins - chopped
1 tbsp of orange zest
1/3 cup of freshly squeezed orange juice
125 grm of butter - melted
1 cup of plain yogurt
2 eggs - lightly beaten
Icing sugar for dusting.


1) Pre-heat oven to 325 degree F and prepare the baking pan.
2) Sift flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder in a large mixing bowl.
3) Add in sugar, raisin and orange zest and stir well.
4) Combined orange juice, melted butter, yogurt and eggs until well mixed.
5) Pour the eggs mixture into the flour and stir well with a big spoon.
6) Pour into the prepared baking pan and smooth the top.
7) Bake in the oven for 40-45 min until golden brown or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the center of the cake.
8) Set aside for 3 min before turning out into a cooling rack.
9) Dust with icing sugar before serving.

Note : I add a handful of dried cranberries for some colour.

Monday, October 22, 2007

Cendol


Cendol has always been my favourite desert. The good old days where you can get a bowl of cendol from the Indian vendor that comes in his bicycle around our neighbourbood. Those green little worms cover with thick coconut santan, gula melaka and most important ice shaving on the topping is just pure heavy in our hot weather.

Zue and I made some cendol over the weekend. Actually is not that difficult at all. All it took us only 20 minutes to do this. Thank Jun of the recipe.

Ingredients

60 grm green bean flour (hoon Kwe flour)
300 ml water (you can blend with pandan leaves to get the flavour and colour )
1 tsp of pandan paste
1 tsp of alkaline water
1 tsp of salt

(we used this kind of ladle to make the little 'worms' )

1) Mix all the above ingredients together until well combined.
2) Cook over low flame until thick.
3) Prepare a basin or container with some cold water and ice. Place a cendol sieve or a ladle over the basin and pour the cendol mixture over the sieve. Press lightly with a big spoon until the mixture went through. Make sure the water is really cold so these little green droplets don't stick to each other.
4) Drain and they are ready to be serve with gula melaka and coconut milk.

Friday, October 19, 2007

Paratha Puffs

Have you ever try baking with the frozen Paratha? If not, you should because it is really easy. I find it much tastier than puff pastry and less fat. I hardly use puff pastries because of the amount of butter in it. This little puff is really good for afternoon tea , party food or snack for children. Is really easy to make. Do give it a try.

This is what I used 'Kawan' brand 'roti canai'
Cut the paratha bread into 3. Put the filling in the middle of the pastry and closed up the edges. The use a fork to press down the edges. For the filling I used leftover roast chicken, onions, garlic and green peas. For seasoning I used BBQ sauce, paprika, chili powder, salt and pepper

Brush the puffs with egg and bake in a pre-heated 350 degree F until golden brown.

Serve it with a cup of coffee or tea.

Note : You can used any kind of filling for this puffs. It can curry puff filling, char siew filling or even tuna and sardin filling. Make sure you dust the counter and your fingers with some flour before handling the pastries because it can get quite sticky.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Stuffed Shell Pasta

This is one of Diana's favourite pasta. She asked me to make some for her and I did last week.

Ingredients :

16-18 large shell pasta
3/4 jar of store bought pasta sauce
Some grated Mozzarella cheese

Filling

10 oz of frozen chopped spinach - thawed and squeeze out the water
1 cup of low fat ricotta cheese
1/2 cup of grated Cheddar cheese
1 cup of cooked ground beef
2 eggs
1/2 tsp of chili powder
1/4 tsp of garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste


1) Bring a big pot of lightly salted water to boil and boil the pasta till al-dente, drain and set aside.
2) To make the filling, mix all the ingredients together and set aside.
3) Grease a baking dish, pre-heate oven to 350 degree F.
4) Pour some pasta sauce at the bottom of the baking dish. Just enough to cover the base.
5) Fill the stuffing into each shell, place them into the baking dish in a single layer. Pour the remaining sauce over the shells and sprinkle on the mozzarella and bake for 40-45 min.
6) Serve immediately.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

I Am So Upset!!!

I just upgraded this blog to their new template. Look what happen!!! My list of posting on the left went missing and I don't know how to retrieved it back. Zue spent so much time helping me with it and and it went missing. I am really really upset. Now, I have to figure out how to put the list back or have to do everything all over again....grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Mini Cheese & Onion Tarts

Ingredients for the dough

1 1/2 cup of flour
1/2 tsp of salt
1 stick of butter (1/2 cup) - diced
3-4 tbsp of water

Filling :

3 eggs - beaten
1 cup of sharp cheedar - grated
4 spring onions - chopped finely
1 cup of milk
3 slices of Ham (can be turkey or chicken) - chopped
salt and pepper to taste

1) In a mixing bowl combined flour, salt and butter. Rub it with your finger tips until the mixture resembles bread crumbs.
2) Add in water, bring together to form a dough. Shape into a ball and let it rest for 30 min.
3) Roll out dough, cut into round shape and line it on mini tart pan or muffin tray.
4) To make filling, combined all the ingredients and add in salt and pepper.
5) Pour filling into tart shells and bake in pre-heated 350 degree F for 25-30 min or until the filling set and golden brown.
6) Transfer to cooling rack to cool.

Saturday, October 13, 2007

New Blog

Dear family and friends. Just to let you know that I've created another new blog. This blog will be mainly about anything to everything beside cooking and baking. Do go and check it out.

Snippets of My Life

Thank you all for the support.

Lemongrass Chicken

I like to wish all my Muslim friends here and back home Selamat Hari Raya Aidil Fitri. During this time I will always remember the food that my muslim friends served during their open house. Like Lontong, Rendang, Serunding, Ketupat, Lemang and not to mentioned all the yummy cookies and cakes. So, I prepared this dish specially for Hari Raya even though I am not celebrate it but it kind of reminds me of home.

Ingredients :

Half Chicken (wash and cut into bite size pieces)
2 tbsp of turmeric powder
salt and pepper to taste
3 lemongrass - smash it with the back of your knife
1/2 cut of coconut milk

Blended Ingredients :

2 tomatoes
5 red chillies
1 big onions
4 cloves of garlic
1" ginger


1) Marinate chicken with salt, pepper and turmeric powder for an hour.
2) Blend the blended ingredients and set aside.
3) Heat up some oil in the wok and brown the chicken on both side. It don't have to be cook. Dish out and set aside. Remove the oil and leave about 2 tablespoon in the wok.
4) Saute the blended ingredients until fragrant.
5) Add in the chicken and lemongrass and stir fry for a few minutes.
6) Add in the coconut milk and simmer until the dish is dry and chicken is cook.
7) Check seasoning and dish out.
8) Serve with warm rice.

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Cheddar Sesame Crackers

Carlos and I like crackers. We eat it with cheese, olives, soup and even with our dinner. We will usually buy the crackers from Trader Joe's but once a while if I am not lazy I will make some. I like making this cheesy crackers. Is rich and not greasy. Is really easy to make. All of you have to do is pulse all the ingredients in a food processor, roll it out, cut it and bake it in the over and you will have a tasty snack to munch on.

Ingredients :

1 1/2 cup of flour
1/2 cup of sesame seeds (extra for sprinkle)
1 tsp of salt
1/2 tsp of chili powder (optional)
4 tbsp of chilled butter (cut into small pieces)
1 egg yolk
1 cup of finely grated cheddar cheese
1/4 cup of milk (might need more or less)

1) Pulse flour, salt, chili powder in the food processor until combined.
2) Add in butter and pulse until mixture looks like bread crumbs.
3) Add in cheese, sesame seeds and egg yolk and pulse for a few second. With the machine running add in the milk slowly until dough comes together and well combined.
4) Transfer dough to the plastic wrap and let it rest in the fridge for an hour.
5) Roll our the dough and cut it to the shape you want and brush with beaten egg and sprinkle on some sesame seeds on the crackers.
6) Bake it in a pre-heated 325 degree F oven until golden brown.

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Apple Tart I

This is what made from the apples. I went through all my baking recipe book to find a simple and easy recipe and found this Dorie Greenspan recipe. As usual I did some minor changes to the recipe.

Sweet Tart Dough :

1 1/4 cups flour
1/2 cup powder sugar
1/2 cup of butter (1 stick)
1/4 cup walnuts
1 egg yolk

In a food processor, combine all the dry ingredients and pulse until it resembles coarse meal. Add the egg yolk and pulse until it form into a ball. Flattened it and wrap it in the plastic wrap and refrigerated it for an hour.

Roll it out to fit the size of your baking pan. I used a 9" tart pan or you can use mini tart pans. Set aside.

If the dough is too soft and hard to roll you can just press the dough to the tart pan.

For the tarts :

3-4 medium sized sweet apples - peeled, cored and thinly sliced
3/4 cup of heavy cream (I used milk)
6 tbsp of sugar
1 egg yolk
1 egg
1 tbsp of flour
1 tsp of vanilla


Arrange the apples on the bottom of the dough. In a bowl mix the eggs, heavy cream. sugar, flour and vanilla. Pour on top of the apples and bake in a pre-heated 375 degree oven for 50-55 min or until golden brown.



Note : I glazed the top of the tart with some appricot jam when its done.

Monday, October 08, 2007

Apple Picking!!!

Nancy and I went apple picking over the weekend. Been in this country for so many years but this is my first time picking apples. We went to Linvilla Orchard which is about 25 minutes drive from our home. Went there really early and we are the first batch of people to arrived there. At this time of the year there are no too many varieties of apple left. There are Gala, Mutsu, Golden Delicious and Jonagold. No much apple left on the trees either and what was left were too high for us to reach. At one point Nancy had to climb up the trees to get the apples. Anyway, we had a great time walking around, tasting and choosing the apples. My favourite is Jonagold which is really sweet.

Now I have to figure out what to do with the 10 pounds of apples.


I wonder why they didn't bring us here to pick our apples
What am I going to do with this big bag of apples
Look at the size of these apples

Saturday, October 06, 2007

Mee Rebus

The last time I made this was in 1993 when a huge group of Church friends came for our Chinese New Year open house. All I have to do is prepared the 'kuah' or gravy and the rest is just garnishes. I cooked this again a few days ago for my good friend Tina who drop by for a visit for a few days. Been a long while since I made this and I am so glad it turn out really well. I will definitely cook this again and this time I will make some cucur udang to go with it.

To blend and set aside

10 red chillies
2 cm turmeric
3 cloves garlic
5 shallots
2 candle nuts (buah keras)
1 handful of dried shrimp (soak)
1 tbsp of curry powder

Other ingredients :

3 medium size sweet potatoes (steam and mash)
5 cups of beef or chicken stock
Salt to taste
Sugar to taste
1 pound of yellow noodles - blanch with boiling water


Garnishes

3 hard boiled eggs - sliced
20 medium size prawns - shell and devein and blanch
1 cucumber - julienned
1 jicama (sengkuang) - julienned
2 cups of beansprouts
fried shallots
cut chillies
cut limes

1) Heat oil and fry the blended ingredients until fragrant. Put in stock and sweet potatoes. Bring to boil and simmer for 10 min.
2) Add in seasoning and bring to boil again. Serve warm.

To serve :

Put noodles and beansprout in a dish. Pour hot gravy over and garnish with eggs, cucumber, jicama, prawns, fried shallots and chillies.

Note : This is a healthier version of Mee rebus as I used chicken stock. You can also use santan for this. If you want a thicker gravy used more sweet potatoes or just add some corn starch solution to the gravy.

Thursday, October 04, 2007

Lemon Cheese Tart


I made this tiny heart shape cheese tart for Carlos birthday yesterday. When I present it to him and his reaction was 'What, why so small' I guess he expected a much bigger cake than that :) like the one I made for our anniversary. Anyway, I don't have much time to prepare something elaborate as my friend from NY is here for a visit. I will make it up to him next week when I have more time.



HAPPY BIRTHDAY SWEETIE !!!

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Steam Tofu with Minced Chicken

Here is another quick and easy dish I whipped up for my dinner. A simple yet delicious dish.

Ingredients for Tofu

1 packet of soft tofu (cut into square)
100 grms of minced chicken
1 spring onion - chopped
1 egg white
1 tsp of soy sauce
1 tsp of oyster sauce
few dash of sesame oil
1/2 tsp of corn flour
a few dash of white pepper

Sauce :

1 cup of chicken stock
1 tbsp of oyster sauce
1/2 tsp of sugar
1 tbsp of soy sauce
some pepper
1 tsp of cornflour + 2 tbsp of water


Mix all the tofu ingredients together except the tofu and let it marinate for half an hour.

Place the cut tofu on a plate and with a little spoon remove a small potion of on the top part of the tofu. Top it with some minced meat.

Bring the steamer to boil and place the tofu into the steamer. Steam for 10 min or until the meat is cooked. Drain off the water.

Bring the sauce ingredient to boil except for the cornflour. When is boil add in the corn flour solution.

Pour the sauce over the tofu and garnish with spring onions, chili and serve warm.

Monday, October 01, 2007

Lettuce Wrap

I like making this for my quick lunch. Is easy, crunchy and healthy wrap.

I used jicama, carrots, bell peppers, snap peas, bean sprout and some cashew nuts. As for the meat I used some chicken breast.

For seasoning I put a few dash of teriyaki sauce, fish sauce, salt and pepper to taste.

Lunch is served !!