Spinach Parcels in Filo Pastry

I have a packet of filo pastry in my freezer from God knows when. I thought of making Baklava with it but change my mind when I saw some leftover roast chicken in my fridge. I gather a few extra ingredients from the fridge and decided to make these parcels. It is not that difficult to make these. The only tricky part of this is working with the filo pastry but once you get the hang of it – it’s easy. You can serve this as an appetizer or like us have it for our dinner with some salad.

Savory Plantain Pancakes/Fritters

We can’t get good bananas here for frying like our goreng pisang back home. I tried using the regular Dole kind but they were not good for frying. They became so soft and watery once it hits the hot oil and it will start spattering all over. I tried it once and never attempt frying it again. Once awhile I will use plantain. Plantain is like our pisang tanduk and I usually slice it up and pan fried it with a bit of butter. This time I mashed it up and made it into pancakes like. Man, were they good. The pancakes were sweet and savory at the same time. Since plantain is pretty starchy you don’t need to add to much flour to it. I used only 3 tbsp of it.

Oven Baked Honey Sriracha Chicken Wings

Wow, I have not updated my blog for over a month. Why such a long silence? Well, laziness I guess. I still cook at least 3-4 times a week but mostly some repeat dishes and sometimes I am just too lazy to take photos but I still update it on my Instagram though. You can follow me there if you want to.

 

Anyway, I baked these wings some time ago. I am a huge fan of wings but I try not to eat it as often. Maybe once every 2-3 months. I have shared quite a few recipes here and this is one recipe that I have yet to post it here which uses one of my favorite chili sauce: Sriracha. I like baking it as it is less messy than frying and probably a bit healthier. These spicy, sweet and slightly charred wings are pretty addictive. I don’t think you can stop eating it with just 1 or 2 so I hope you try it out.

Ham and Corn Croquettes

I don’t make this often but sometimes I do crave for it. I prefer Croquettes made from béchamel sauce rather than potatoes. I like the soft, creamy and buttery interior that oozes out of the crispy breadcrumbs when bite into it. The mixture is quite soft to handle, so it is better than you let it cool down really well in the fridge before handling it. These savory patties are good as an appetizer and you can mix anything in it into the béchamel base.

Banh Khot/Vietnamese Mini Savory Pancakes

I am so sorry for not updating my blog for over 2 weeks. I have been very busy and also having some problem with my car too. It was stolen from my driveway and it totally stresses me out. Thank God the police found it and it was in pretty good shape. Now I have to deal with the insurance, the DMV and whole loads of paperwork to be done before I can drive the car again. Anyway, I don’t want to bore you with all the details.

Now let’s talk about Banh Khot. Banh Khot is a mini sized rice cake that is fried and served with fresh lettuce, herbs and dipping sauce. I’ve eaten Banh Khot from a Vietnamese restaurant in PA and really like it. What I love about this snack is the crispy texture on the outside and soft and tender in the middle. To eat it you take a piece of the banh khot, place it in a bed of lettuce and herbs, a bit of the pickle carrot, wrapped it up and eat it. It is crispy, sour, sweet, salty and spicy at the same time. Really satisfying!!

I bought a Banh Khot/Ebelskiver pan from Amazon last year so I thought I try to make this at home. It turns out pretty well but not as crispy as the restaurant ones. I think it’s because I used too little oil to the pan when I was frying it. The last batch I added a bit more oil to it and it did turn out crispy. The Asian supermarket does sell the ready mix banh khot flour and you can use that. Since I am too lazy to drive out to buy it, I just goggle for the recipe. As for the dipping sauce I added some carrot to the dipping sauce as this way I don’t have to pickle the carrot separately. I serve mine with only lettuce since I don’t have any fresh herbs in my fridge but you can have it with any type of lettuce and fresh herbs.

Shrimp and Carrot Fritters

I love fritters of any kind. They were great for afternoon tea or even breakfast. I prepared this batch for fritters when my friend Nini’s came over for afternoon tea. We had it with some Chinese tea from Teavivre – Tea for Life . They sent me some sample packets to try out a few weeks ago. We tried out the Jasmine ‘Dragon Pearl’ Green Tea. When I opened the packet I can see the unopened bud and small leaves in it. I understand that the tea leaves were hand rolled into small pearl shape, which will slowly unfurl during brewing. The flavor is so delicate and light, with great aroma of sweet jasmine and faint hint of green tea. You have to drink this tea slowly to savor all the delicate taste.

Now let's get back to the fritters. I’ve made a lot of fritters but I think by far this is the best tasting one as the fritters came out crunchy and with a bit of sweetness from the grated carrot. It goes really great with a cup of tea. What a great way to cleanse the palette.

Crispy Tofu with Shrimp Squares

I like this dish a lot. In fact I made a bit more and freeze some of it up so the next time I wanted to eat this all I have to do and take it out of the freezer and fry them up. You must be thinking why I like to freezer most of my food rather than eating them fresh. Well, I don’t cook everyday especially our Asian type of food and when I do I usually cook a bit more and freeze them up so I can have it anytime I want. It is usually dishes that freeze well like rendang, curries, stew, soup, curry puffs and etc. So now you know why I need two fridges when there are just two of us ha ha..

Anyway, back to this dish. My mom used to make this dish for us. When I called her last week on her birthday I asked her how to make this dish and she told me roughly what she put in it. I gather all the ingredients and made this the following day. The squares turn out really well. They were crispy on the outside, nice and moist on the inside.

Stuffed Mini Sweet Peppers

I just love these cute mini sweet peppers. They were so colorful and I just can’t resist buying it. Carlos has been putting them in his salad but I am not a fan of eating them raw as I can’t digest it too well. I will be repeating it the whole day. So I decided to stuff them with some ground beef and baked them with some marinara sauce.

You can serve this as an appetizer, a side dish or like us we have it with some toasted bread for our dinner. They were so good as the pepper turns out so sweet after roasting in the oven and the meat on inside stays moist. In fact Carlos asked me to make more the next time so he can have the leftovers the next day…. Enjoy!

Baked Buffalo Wings with Blue Cheese Dipping Sauce

These easy to make hot wings are crispy without being fried. With the sports season around now they are great for snacking while watching the game. All it takes is just 10 minutes to prepare, an hour to marinate and then stick it in the oven for an hour and it is done. I like it spicier so I added a bit more hot sauce to it but you can adjust the amount to your liking.

Ingredients:

10 chicken wings
Some celery sticks

Baked Panko Parmesan Zucchini Crisps

My two zucchini plants have been giving me a few zucchini and since Carlos is not a fan of it I have to find ways to finish them up all by myself. I put them in my Korean pancakes, my curries and make it into this healthy snack. I coat them in panko breadcrumbs as they are much lighter and give the zucchini much crispier texture. They are great as snack, appetizer or side dish to any burger meal. This is much healthier than potato chips because they’re baked and not fried. Since I had it as snack I did make a dipping sauce to go with it but you can use any type of dipping sauce of your choice.

Fried Stuffed Zucchini Blossoms

I look forward to these delicate each summer. In fact I have two zucchini plants at my backyard and they gave me quite a few flowers every 2 days but mostly male flowers. I wish there gave me more female flowers though as I would like to have some zucchini too. So far I saw only 4 zucchini out of the 2 plants.

Anyway I collected quite a few of it and stuffed some of them up. I am not too keen on stuffing it with cheese as it oozed out while I was frying it and it was a mess. Oil spatters everywhere. This time I stuffed it with some meat and dipped it in light batter and deep fried them. The batter coats the flowers so lightly but it still gives a satisfying crunch when you bite into the savory center. We like this version so much better.

Chicken Satay with Peanut Sauce

I made this the first week I arrived back to the USA. This is one particular dish that reminds me a lot of home. I grew up in Kajang. Kajang is a small town in the state of Selangor that is famous of its Satay. You just have to mentioned Satay and many people will tell you that Kajang serve the best satay. There are quite a few of Satay restaurant in Kajang but I still like the satay from Restoran Malaysia.

What sets their satay apart from the rest? It is because they don’t use chicken skin or fatty bits in their satay. I hate biting into them when I have my satay. They also serve the traditional ketupat (rice cakes in coconut leaf casings) instead of nasi impit (compactly pressed rice cut into cubes) to accompany the satay. Anyway, I am sure the ingredients used to marinate their satay are well guarded secret but you can find many recipes online now. I adapted this recipe from MamaFami with minor changes.

Crispy Oven Baked Chicken Wings

Happy New Year everyone. I hope all of you are looking forward to year 2014. I know I am :) Let's start the new year with something healthy. I am sure most of us love fried chicken wings. I know I do but I am trying to lessen our consumption of fried foods so I’ve done a few trial runs on creating crispy oven bake wings. I am trying to get it as crispy as the fried ones but minus all the oil. Well, I came up with this. It has crispy coating, juicy and tender meat and yes way less calories than the deep fried ones. I have to warn you. This is highly addictive so don’t overeat.

 

Shrimp with Pomelo and Mango Salad

I love Thai food. There is something about their food that is so addictive. I think it is the taste of sweet, sour, spicy and salty of their dishes and not forgetting all the fresh herbs they used in their cooking. One particular dish that I will order is their salad. It can either be green mango, papaya or their pomelo salad. I’ve visited Thailand countless time and there was once I tasted their green mango and pomelo salad at a buffet restaurant and they were so good. Till today I still think of this particular dish and I am recreating it in my kitchen so I can submit it for the AFF event hosted by Lena of Frozen Wings. This salad with the addition of grill shrimps makes a terrific lunch or even as starter to any Thai or Asian-style meal. You'll find it very unique and refreshing, and so will your guests. ENJOY!

Agedashi Tofu

Agedashi tofu is a simple Japanese way to serve hot tofu. Soft or firm tofu is cut into cubes, is lightly dusted with potato starch or cornstarch and then deep fried until golden brown. It's then served in a hot tentsuyu broth made of dashi, mirin, and shoyu (Japanese soy sauce), and topped with finely chopped green onions and bonito flakes.

Ingredients:

1 block soft tofu
Some potato starch
Some cut green onions
Some bonito flakes

Chicken and Green Onion Yakitori

Yakitori in Japan can be refer to skewered food in general, traditionally serve at small restaurant or stands that grill them to order over charcoal and to be consumed alongside alcoholic beverages in the evening. These skewers will be grill to perfections and then basting it with homemade yakitori sauce. I made my own basting sauce as I find them tastier than the store bought stuff. You can use this sauce for basting any meat or vegetable.

Kabocha Korokke/Pumpkin Croquette

Korokke (croquette) is a popular snack in Japan. Korokke is usually made with mashed potatoes and ground beef. Korokke comes in different sizes and varieties. I’ve tasted one that is made from pumpkin and with a whole hardboiled egg on the inside. The crispy outer crust, the sweetness of the kabocha with their special spicy mayo sauce is seriously good.

 

For the AFF - Japan event I am trying to recreates this dish again. I prefer the korokke to be smaller in size so instead of using the usual chicken egg like how the restaurant serves it, I used quail eggs but I did made one using the regular egg.

Nasu Dengaku/Grilled Eggplant with Miso Glaze

I will order this particular appetizer whenever they have it in the menu. It is light, silky texture and the savory miso glaze at the top. I just can’t get enough of it. Actually it is not difficult to prepare it at home. You can either grill it or just bake and broil it in the oven like I did. I used the Japanese egg plant from my garden but I’ve tried it with the Italian eggplant and they were just as good but it takes a bit longer time to cook though.

Ingredients:

3 medium size eggplants (I used 5 tiny ones)
Some vegetable oil – for brushing
Toasted sesame seeds – for garnish
Some sliced spring onions – for garnish
Some seaweed – for garnish

Spicy Honey Glazed Baked Chicken Wings

I think I’ve mentioned before in my previous posting that I love chicken wings. You can stew it, fried it, grill it or baked it, I love them all. One of my favorite ways of preparing it is just marinate it and stick it into the oven. I don’t really have a favorite marinate recipe, I just put a bit of this a bit of that or whatever I can find in my pantry that day. It always turns out tender and tasty. This time I brush it with honey to make it sweet and savory at the same time. Do try this out; it is much healthier and best of all no greasy frying mess to clean up.

 

 

Curry Flavor Fried Oyster Mushroom Fritters

I bought some fresh oyster mushroom from the Asian store recently not knowing what to do with it. I remember seeing a few recipes of fried mushroom at Elin’s blog and decided to check them out. I settle for this batter recipe as it looks really crispy. I double up the recipe and added some curry powder to the batter to give it an extra kick. Like Elin said, the mushroom was crispy and crunchy on the outside and chewy and moist on the inside. Do give it a try, it is really good.