Homemade Mixed Berries Jam

Come summer I look forward to all the berries that I can get from the farmer’s market or supermarket. I will buy loads of them when the price it right. It will be the time that I make jam out of it. I prefer homemade jam than the store bought kind as I find them way too sweet. I still put quite a bit of sugar in my jam but not as much as the store bought kind. Well, jam is a way to preserve fruit with sugar so please doesn’t ask me how to make it sugar free or low sugar as I don’t know how but I did use organic sugar here. So I would like to think it is much healthier ha ha..Anyway, you should consume anything in moderation.

I normally just made 2-3 jars at a time to last us for 2 -3 months but this time I made a bit more since I got a very good bargain on the fruits from the vendor. I gave a few jars away to close friends. This is refrigerator jam and not intended to be sealed and stored in the pantry. So make sure you refrigerate it.

Condiments

These are a few condiments that I will have in my fridge at all time. We eat them with our meals most of the time.

Pickle Green Chilies

Ingredients:

400 gram green chillies
1 1/2 cup rice vinegar
2 cups boiling water
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup sugar

Cut chillies and soak it in the boiling water for 1 minute. Discard the water. Put the chillies in the jar, pour in the vinegar. Add in the sugar and salt. Mix well. Refrigerate it for a few days before eating it.

I will have them with my noodles especially Sang Har Mee and Ipoh Hor Fun and as for Carlos he will have it with most of his meal and sandwiches.

Meyer Lemon Curd

The neighbor behind my house has a Meyer lemon tree and it is bursting with fruits. I can see them from my bedroom windows and thinking of all my favorite lemon treats to make from it. The neighbor sister brought me a big bag of it a couple of weeks ago. I have to say, they are the best Meyer lemon I ever had. There are so fragrant and with high volume of juicy. The Meyer lemon fruit is rounder than the common lemon, with a slight hint of orange and not as tart as regular lemon. I used it to make some lemon curd. Lemon curd is great for toast, scones, cookies, tart filler, to name just a few. If you can’t find Meyer lemons, use regular lemons instead. Do stay tune and see what I make with the rest of the lemons.

Nyonya Fried Noodles with Jicama and Pineapple Sambal - Day 23

My friend Shereen told me that almost all Peranakans/Nyonya will have a recipe like this in their family. The unique thing about these particular noodles is that it will be eaten with Sambal pineapple and cucumber. It is somewhat similar to a salsa albeit with a different taste and spiciness level. This noodle is usually eaten during happy occasion such as Chinese New Year, birthdays or family get together for a celebration. I replace the cucumber with jicama as I don’t have it in my fridge and I am too lazy to drive out just to get it.

Since the noodles and sambal were eaten together, I thought it will be a good idea to pile them up together into the jelly mould. The sweet and tangy taste of the sambal compliments the noodles really well. This is a very appetizing dish indeed. Thanks Shereen for sharing the recipes with us. I did some minor changes to the recipe to suit my taste and also the availabilities of ingredients in my fridge.

Strawberry Jam

Strawberries are abundance now and it can be really cheap. I bought a few pounds of it the other day. Some I had it fresh and some I made it into jam. This recipe yield 2 jars and it will last me for some time. I usually have it with toast or scones.

Asian Style Butterflied Roast Chicken - S$20 Budget Meal (Blog Event)

I will prepare at least 3-4 elaborate dinners each week and the rest of the week will be something simple like sandwiches, salad or leftovers. I don’t normally have a menu plan out for the week. During groceries shopping I will buy what is in season or what items are on sale. I will cook the weekly meal based on what I bought or what I still have in the fridge.

Here is one of the many meals I prepared for our dinner and sharing this with S$20 Budget Meal Blog Event hosted by Elena of Cuisine Paradise. The theme of this event is to prepare any "2 Dishes plus 1 Soup" or "1 Pot Dish" using a Maximum budget of S$20.00 or in my case US$15.00. I spent a total of $ 12.21 for this meal that will serve 4 people.

We will have roast chicken once every two weeks. I will usually marinate it with lots of fresh herbs and seasonings but for this chicken I marinate it with some Asian ingredients. We will usually eat this with roasted vegetables accompanied with some bread or rice.

Ginger Scallion Dipping Sauce

Ginger, scallion (green onions) and garlic are one of the most common ingredients in Asian cooking. Many of our dishes use this three herbs combination. With these three ingredients I like to make it into a dipping sauce for my poached chicken/Hainanese Chicken Rice. You can even mix this sauce to your noodles, salad,and potatoes salad or as topping for steamed fish. This is what I called the Asian pesto.

For the recipe of Poached Chicken kindly refer here

Fried Noodles with Seafood in XO Sauce

This is one quick noodle I cooked for lunch using homemade XO Sauce . This sauce is really versatile as I like using it in my noodles and also in stir-fried dishes. You can make this sauce at home but for convenience, it is available in most Asian Supermarkets. There are many varieties of Chinese Noodles but for this I used the fresh yellow noodles. If you can’t find this kind of noodles you can just use spaghetti.

Roasted Pepper Aioli

Aioli (eye-oh-lee) is a garlic mayonnaise sauce that hails from Provence region of France and it is as natural on the dining table as butter or salt and pepper. It is usually pair with crab cakes, crudités, artichoke leaves, potato wedges etc. Diana made this the other day for us to spread on our hamburgers. With the leftovers we just dipped it with our roasted potatoes wedges.

Sambal Nasi Lemak/Dried Anchovies Sambal

Sambal Ikan Bilis is the main condiment for Nasi Lemak. To me a good Nasi Lemak is all about the sambal.. It can either make or break this popular national dish of Malaysia. I usually prepare a huge batch of sambal and keep them in the fridge and I can use it whenever I want it. I am sure most of you already have your favorite version of sambal but I just wanted to post it here for my own record and also one of my blog reader JS asked for it too. I am not a big fan of having the whole ikan bilis in my sambal as I find them rather chewy after cooking it in the sambal paste. So when I came across the recipe from Ju of The Little Teochew I just have to try it out. She got this recipe from The Sunday Times. The different about this sambal is it has ground ikan bilis in it which I like a lot. I added some tamarind pulp to the dish and double up the quantity.

XO Sauce

What is XO sauce? XO sauce is a spicy seafood sauce origin from Hong Kong Cantonese cuisine. It is made from dry scallop; dry shrimps, ham, chilies, shallots and garlic are cooked over medium heat for some time. It’s spicy, salty and sweet and if you’re a chili lover, you’ll find this sauce irresistible. XO sauce is also known as the ‘Caviar of the Orient’ is an essential flavor enhancer and a condiment. Not may people make this sauce as home as it is tedious and time consuming and it is easier to just head out to the Asian supermarket to buy one. I made this because I think it cost too much at the store. A tiny little bottle cost like $6.00. Since I have all the ingredients at home I tried making this at home. This sauce is very versatile. You can use it as dipping sauce or add it into your cooking or just eat it with rice or noodles.

By looking the all the ingredients I am sure you know how this sauce will smell like. I bought an electrical skillet just to cook this outside the deck. I don’t think Carlos can tolerate the pungent smell that will lingers around for days ha ha... I want to cook this sauce for a longer period of time but the smell attracts a huge swarm of flies to the deck and it was freaking me out. So I cut short the cooking time but nevertheless it still taste really good.

I was warming up the XO sauce in the microwave to eat it with my noodles and guess what my husband said. He said it smells so bad that he ran and hides in our computer room and he stays there for hours until the smell disappeared. He said I’ve cooked food that smells funky but this one takes the cake. To me it smells so good just like what his said about his stinky cheese ha ha… Since some of you request for the recipe so here it is. I hope you enjoy cooking and eating this great sauce

Ingredients:

10 fresh red chilies
15 dried chilies – soak in hot water
200g dried scallops – soak overnight until soft
2 head of garlic - peeled
10 shallots - peeled
200g dried shrimp – soak in hot water until soft
150g Chinese ham –I used the normal supermarket ham
3 tbsp oyster sauce
2 tbsp sugar
½ tbsp coarsely ground black pepper
Salt to taste

1. Drain scallops, tear them into find shreds, pat it dry on paper towel and set it aside. Drain .dry shrimps and chopped if finely and set it aside.
2. Put the shallots in food processor and chop it finely. Do the same to the garlic too, remove and set it aside.
3. Remove the steam and seeds of the fresh chilies and dry chilies. Chopped it finely in the food processor and set it aside. Next chopped the ham and set it aside.
4. Heat up about a cup of vegetable oil in a frying pan or wok over medium high heat. Add in scallops and frying it until crispy and lightly brown. Remove and set it aside. In the same oil, add in garlic, shallots and dried prawns. Stir constantly and cook until lightly brown.
5. Add in ham, and chilies. Lower down the heat and continue to fry for another 10 minutes. Add more oil if necessary. Stir constantly as it may burn easily.
6. Add in the oyster sauce, sugar, salt and pepper and lastly add in the fried scallops. Continue stir fry until it is completely dry. Remove from heat and let it cool. Transfer to sterile jar and keep in the refrigerator.