Chicken in Sweet Soy Sauce/Ayam Masak Kicap Manis

This is a dish that I cooked often when I want something quick and easy. This is a childhood favorite of mine. My mother used to cook it for us very often. Sometimes she will add mushrooms or potatoes to it. It is an easy Malay dish that tasted absolutely delicious with steamed rice.

Ingredients:

1/2 chicken – removed skin, fats and cut into bite size pieces
2 medium size potatoes – peel and cut into quarters
1 small onion
1” fresh ginger
2 cloves garlic
2 spring onions – cut into 1” length

Swiss Roll with Strawberry Jam Filling

I love Swiss roll but not a fan of making it. I actually have phobia rolling it up. It breaks and cracks on me so many times until I gave up on it. If you check my posting here you can only find 1 posting on Swiss roll. The last time I baked one of this was in 2008. I was talking to my good friend Shereen the other day and she recommended me one recipe and she said “guarantee success”!! That was her exact words LOL. True enough the Swiss roll turns out soft and moist BUT not sure what happen as the skin of the roll peeled off and got stuck on the parchment paper I used for rolling. I suspect that I might need to bake it a bit longer. I will definitely bake this again and hopefully the next time I will do a better job.

Cheesy Orzo Frittata

I have this habit of buy all shapes pasta to keep in my pantry. It is not that we are big pasta eater but I like to keep them handy when I needed them. One of them is Orzo Pasta. Orzo pasta is a type of pasta which is made in the shape of a grain of rice. This pasta is very versatile, and it can be use in soup, salad, casserole or you can even substitute orzo for the rice. The word orzo is Italian for “barley,” and a reference to the size and shape of the pasta. The small size can make orzo fun pasta to work and cook with.

I found this Chicken and Orzo Frittata by Giada De Laurentiis from Food Network.com. I change the recipe a bit with some leftovers from my fridge. I replaced the chicken with some leftover ham, the roasted peppers with sundried tomatoes and added some olives since Carlos is a huge fan of it. Her recipe also calls for crème fraiche, which I don’t usually have on hand so I substituted it with half and half. This is an easy dish to prepare and we enjoyed it with some salad.

This is my version of the frittata but you can check out the original recipe here .

Citrusy Hot Cross Buns

It’s a lovely windy sunny spring, and all the spring flowers are blooming. The aroma of these freshly baked hot cross buns hangs around in my kitchen and it certainly adds the joy of making them. Hot Cross buns are traditionally eaten on Good Friday and Easter in Christian households, beyond the religious significance, hot cross buns are rich in folklore. Eating one is a symbol of friendship for the coming year when shared with another. Sailors would often bring the buns aboard to guard against shipwrecks and hanging a hot cross bun in the kitchen would help protect against fires and would guarantee that all breads baked in the kitchen would turn out well. Who knew?

This year I used the same recipe from my previous posting but with some minor changes.

Pad Thai

This is a must order noodles dish for me when I dine at Thai restaurant. Pad Thai is one of the most popular Thai dishes, perhaps second only to Tom Yum Goong. The key to perfect Pad Thai is in the cooking of the noodles - learn how to get them chewy-perfect pad thai sauce which is tangy, sweet and a little spicy. When it's all put together, you'll find there isn't a noodle dish better than world-famous Pad Thai.

Ingredients:

Half packet Thai rice sticks – you can get this from the regular supermarket at the Asian section
4 oz beef tenderloin – slice thinly and marinate with some soy sauce and pepper
14 shrimps – peel and deveined
2 cloves garlic - chopped
2 shallots - sliced thinly
2 cups bean sprout – remove the tails
2 spring onions – cut into 1” length
Some pepper and fish sauce to taste
Some peanuts – for garnish

Cappuccino Cheesecake

Who doesn’t like cheesecake? Cheesecake may just be the perfect food. It is certainly one of the oldest on record. It is believed that cheesecake was served to the Olympic athletes during the first Olympic Games in 776 B.C. Any food with that kind of staying power just has to have something to it, right?

Anyway, since I bought quite a bit of cream cheese when they went on sale not too long ago, I decided to bake something out of it. Chocolate and coffee is such a great combination. It is a marriage made in heaven. If you are a fan of chocolate, cheesecake and coffee, this is for you. The delicate smooth coffee flavor is complemented by the richness of cheese really well.

Sago Gula Melaka/Sago Pudding with Palm Sugar Syrup

The temperature here in Pa went from upper 50’s to over 80 degree in just one day last week and it was totally shock to my body. I need something sweet and cooling to cool myself down. What can be better than having some sago gula Melaka. I always have a soft spot for Gula Melaka. I like it in my dessert a lot. Gula Melaka is used in a lot of our Malaysian dessert. You can read more about it here. Besides loving it in cendol, I like it in sago too. This is so easy to make. With just a few ingredients and you have a nice cold dessert after your meal.

Red Bean Buns II

I don’t give up easily when come to cooking and baking. If I don’t get it right the first time I will try cooking and baking it again until I am satisfy with the results. I baked these buns not too long ago and many of you mistaken it as some type of pastry and I don’t blame you at all. It does look more like pastry than buns ha ha… anyway, I made this again but this time I change the recipe a little bit and it turn out perfect. What do you think? It looks better than the previous one?

Chinese BBQ Pork/Char Siu

**Non-halal**

When I first move to the US, I had problem eating the pork from here. I find them too porky and with a very strong gamey smell. If you see my previous posting I hardly cook with it except for a few dishes, Siew Yoke and occasionally using pork ribs in soup. It took me over 5 years just to get used to the smell and now I think they tasted alright and I slowly incorporate pork into our meals.

I made this Char Siu for our dinner not too long ago and kept some of it for my Ramen and wanton noodles. Since we are not a big fan of fatty pork, I used tenderloin to make this but you can use your favorite cut of meat to make this.

Fish Curry/Kari Ikan

I only buy a few types of fish here. It is usually tuna, salmon, tilapia fillet and Dover fillet. The reason is because Carlos will only eat this few type of fish and nothing else. Don’t give him fish with head and tail or else he will freaks out. Back home if I cook this type of curry I will usually use ikan kembong or any whole fish but here I will have to make do with tilapia fillets. This is something that he will eat.

Ingredients:

3 pieces of fish fillet – cut into 2” square
3 tomatoes – quarter
10 okras – remove the tips
1 cup of pineapple – cubes
3 tbsp of fish curry powder
1 sprig curry leaves
1 1/2 cups coconut milk
2 tbsp tamarind paste/pulp + 1 ½ cup of water
Sugar and salt to taste

Mini Nutella Marble Cake

A friend came over for a visit a few weeks ago and I baked these little cakes to have it with our afternoon tea. Instead of chocolate I used Nutella for the marbling effects. I always have weakness for Nutella and will usually spread it on toast and but by adding some to this cake was such a treat for me.

Sweet Taro Soup with Gingko Nuts

This type of sweet dessert soup is popular at dim sum place here. Beside this they sometimes serve sweet red bean soup, mung bean soup, black sesame soup or sweet peanut soup.I don’t make soup like this often as Carlos is not a fan of it. He will politely take a few sips of it if I insist he try it out and that was it. I made this soup during CNY so that we can have something sweet to start the New Year.

Ingredients:

350 gram taro – peels and cut into small cubes
3 1/2 - 4 cups water (more or less)
4 tbsp sago pearl – soak in cold water for 15 minutes
¼ cup sugar
½ cup thick coconut milk
½ cup gingko nuts

Chwee Kueh/Quar Ko Kueh/Steamed Rice Cake with Preserved Radish

We called this Quar Ko Kueh (in Hokkien) or Wun Chai Ko (in Cantonese) and it means small bowl cake, but some people called it Chwee Kueh (means water cake) you can read more about it here. This is a popular breakfast item in Malaysia and Singapore. The cakes itself are pretty bland, but with the sweet and salty topping it transformed the cake into a delectable morsel.

I remember during childhood we kids will wait for this old lady on her bicycle to come by late evening selling this. Beside this she sells the sweet version too. She will unmold the cake and passed it to us to put our own topping and we will put a lot of it. She will always scold us for putting way too much ha ha... For this kueh it is all about the topping. Those were the days. I really miss that.

Ingredients for the batter:

(A)
150 gram rice flour
4 tbsp tapioca flour
1 tbsp wheat starch
250 ml water

(B)
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp salt
360 ml water