A healthy simple dish that you can make within the hour.
Ingredients:-
1 whole chicken
3 large red onions
1 stick of lemon grass
3 tbs of sugar
2 tsp of salt
1 tbsp of Kurma powder / Rempah Sop
3 tbs of Chili Boh/ Chili paste
4 large pieces of pandan leaves
1 medium size tumeric leaf
Cut your chicken as how you would wish. I’d advice on 8 equal parts.
Blend your red onions and lemon grass. Do not use all of the lemon grass, only use the first two inches of the lemon grass from the root. That is where the flavour and smell is greatly concentrated.
Mix everything except the leaves with the chicken. Once that is done, line the base of your baking tray with pandan leaves and then arrange all your marinated chicken with all the paste onto the tray. Slicing the turmeric leaves into small pieces, garnish it onto the chicken.
Once that is done, pop the chicken into your oven at a temperature of 250 degrees Celsius for an hour or so. Don’t panic if there is a reservoir of oil in the tray. The oil is from the chicken’s fat, thus making it good for your health.
Once it is cook, take it out from the tray, throw away the oil and serve. You can also reheat the leftovers for 30mins at the same temperature and the flavour of the spices will be much more flavoured when you bite the chicken.
It’s Sunday and this means I’m a chemist in my kitchen! This time I made Wanton chicken, fresh from my own kitchen and not from the frozen packs that you can easily get from the supermarkets.
I don’t use pork since I’m a Muslim and instead I used chicken. You can get frozen minced chicken meat from the supermarket. I had used quite a few brands of chicken meat found in Malaysia and I prefer Farmbest Brand anytime. It’s cheap and very nice.
Furthermore I’d advice for Wanton Lovers to always keep frozen minced chicken in their fridge as a spare. The recipe is so simple and easy. You can also just whip it up in minutes.
I also uses crab meat sticks as a replacement for shrimps. It’s cheaper…
Ingredients:-
300gm minced chicken meat
3 sticks of crab meat, cut into small pieces
4 sticks of Chinese Parsley (daun sop), chopped
1 stick of Spring Onion, chopped
1 tsp pepper
1tsp black pepper
1tsp Sesame seed oil
3tsp soy sauce
1 pack of wanton skins
1) To make the filling of the wanton, mix everything in a bowl and leave it to marinate for an hour.
2) Take a slice of the wanton skin, taking half a teaspoon of the filling and place it at the center of the skin. Taking an edge of the skin, fold the skin into half and clamp the edges tightly with your fingers. You can also use a normal batter of flour and water to make it as a glue to hold the edges together.
Keep repeating the process untill all of your fillings have been used up. Once you are done with it, you can either fry your wanton or cook it with chicken soup.
Fish head curry has always scared me especially when I have a good chef for a mother. Thank god my fish head curry this time turns out well, in fact from my extreme critic of a father, it was extremely well executed. Phew.. I had thought it will turn out bad, either too watery or lacking of the important flavor that creates the ‘kick’ in the curry.
Don’t look at me for the recipe, whenever I make curry, I will never use the same quantity for each cooking. Anyway my parents went to Kulai Tesco and bought baby octopus and oysters. The oysters were cooked for lunch just now in Oyster Egg dish.
It’s the same as making omelette the only difference is that alot of Coriander Leaves (Daun Ketumbar in Malay), Spring Onions (Daun Bawang), black pepper and white pepper are added. Then served with a large helpful serving of chilli sauce. Oh yummy…
I would want to share my own recipe for you but in the mean time while I get the right quantity right since I usually chuck all of my ingredients in without measuring the amount, you can get the recipe from this website. The recipe looks decent and feasible but please take note, do not use those large size oyster in your dish. It’s a waste of good oyster and when you try to swallow and bite them, it tasted quite disgusting with your omelet.
It’s best to use small sized oysters which you can easily get in Hypermarkets like Tesco, they usually have it. I don’t use potato flour as it is starch and usually used by the hawkers to get more volume from the egg, so I usually leave it out. I’d rather just use plain old chicken eggs.
As promised I’m posting this recipe after re-correcting and re-testing it. The first time I tried making it, the top cracked due to lack of whip cream added to the melted chocolate. But after re-adjusting the ratio of whip cream to the semi-sweet melted chocolate, it turns out marvelous!
Coffee Cheesecake Side view
To make cheesecake it’s quite simple and cheap really. You don’t need to buy Philadelphia cream cheese as its quite costly. Instead, head out to your nearest baking ingredients shop and get them. It’s far cheaper since it’s brandless and the quality of the cheese is the same. I got mine at only RM8.00/ 250gm, while the Philadelphia cream cheese cost around Rm14.00/250gm. I saved almost Rm5!
For the base of the cheesecake, I used the cheapest biscuit crackers around which was Tesco cream crackers, Rm2.99/pkt. You can also use graham or digestive biscuits if you wish. If you prefer to be more experimental like me, I’ve mixed chopped almonds into the crushed crackers to add more flavour. Baking is all about experimenting new boundaries, so don’t be scared to test it out!
Below are the ingredients:-
500gm cream cheese (room temp)
250gm plain yogurt
3tbsp instant coffee mixed with 1 tbsp water
1/4 cup melted butter + 3tbsp
3 eggs
1/2 cup whip cream
100gm semi-sweet cooking chocolate
4tbsp cake flour sieved (optional)
400gm cream crackers crushed with blender/food processor
30gm chopped almonds
50gm Almond Flakes
1) Cream sugar, butter, yogurt until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one by one, mixing it well at each interval. Add the cheese and mix well. (note: best to break the cheese into smaller parts to mix it easier.)
2) Add the instant coffee mix and sieved cake flour. Mix it well. (note: the flour is optional as it will give a slightly tougher texture for those who do not like the creamy soft texture of full cheesecake)
3) Melt the chocolate in a water bath. You can refer to the process of melting it here.When the chocolate has melted, in the same bowl itself, mix the whip cream in, gradually adding it abit at a time. Mix it well until it becomes light and fluffy.
4) Add the butter (3thbs) in the crushed cream crackers and mix it thoroughly. If you don’t have a food processor, you can manually crush the crackers with your hands or putting them in a plastic bag and pounding them with your rolling pin.
Once the crackers has turned into breadcrumbs, mix the chopped almonds. Take a spring form cake pan, lined the crushed crackers mix at the base of the pan. Press the mixture down firmly with your hands and cover all the cracks. Then line the top with almond flakes. Put them in the oven at 200 degress celsius for 10mins until golden brown then leave ur oven on to preheat it.
5) Cool the pan first for 10mins or so before adding the cheese batter. Then take the chocolate mix and drop spoonfulls into the cheese batter, however you wish to design it.
6) Put the cheesecake in the oven at 175 degrees Celsius for 1hr in a water bath/ double boil baking. (refer below for double boil) Don’t ever open the oven in the 1st 30mins of baking time to avoid the moisture from escaping and causing the cake to crack. After an hour, let the cake be cooled in the oven for another hour, leaving the door slightly open.
Chill it overnight before serving. Serves best with tea.
**Double Boil: Put a tray of water at the bottom of the oven with the cake on top on another tray/ level.
I’ve readjusted and fine tuned the first experimental recipe I made last week on my Chocolate Layered Cake. I’ve added new flavors and more milk and it turns out fantastic. I’ve also taken a few pictures on how it is layered.
Below are the ingredients:-
350gm butter (melted at room temp)
350gm castor sugar
6 large eggs
4 cups of self-raising flour
2 tsp vanilla essence
2 tbsp coco powder
120gm semi sweet cooking chocolate, place at room temp (more if you like)
7tbsp milk (can also use evaporated milk)
3tbsp instant coffee mixed with 1tbsp of water
1) Melt the chocolate either by water bath or microwave oven if available. If using microwave oven, you can melt it at high temperature at only 1min. If you don’t have a microwave like me, you can follow the steps below.
1.1) Take a large pot, around 12 inch diameter, fill it up with water about half of the pot. Heat the water to a boil. Chop the chocolate and place it in a heat proof bowl (Pyrex or your microwavable porcelain bowl). When the water is boiling, turn to a low heat and place the bowl in the center of the pot. Leave the chocolate to melt by itself and you can occasionally check on it. Remember to always let the melted chocolate to cool for a moment before you put it into your batter.
2) Cream the butter, sugar, vanilla essence, eggs and milk using electric mixer. I would usually use manual whisker but since this will be a heavy batter, it’s best to use an electric mixer for beginners. Mix the batter until fluffy and creamy.
3) Separate the batter into 3 equal parts. You can the other two parts in separate large bowls.
3.1) In the large mixing bowl, add your cocoa powder. Remember to sieve your cocoa powder before adding to avoid clumps in the batter. After mixing it well, add the melted chocolate and mix it again. Take another 7tbsp of milk and add it to the mixture until the batter is once again smooth and creamy.
3.2) In another bowl, add your instant coffee mix. Mix it well.
3.3) Leave the last bowl or part alone.
4) Take a 12″ x 8″ pan, line it up will tracing paper / greaseproof paper and butter the sides of the pan. Take a few healthy spoonfuls of the coffee batter and layer it as the base, making sure it thick and covering the base well. Then layer on top of the coffee batter with the plain white batter and cover the coffee batter. Follow the same procedure for the chocolate batter.
You can add as many layers as you want. In my case, I have place the batter in plastic wrap pipes and pipe the batter out to make patterns. You don’t need to buy expensive plastic wraps for this. If you have a clean unused plastic bags which are usually use to bag your fruits/ vegetables in the supermarket, you can use them.
First Layer
Just pour the batter into the plastic bags, squeeze the air out, making sure that the batter sits at the base of the bag. Then tie the opening. Take a corner end of the bag and cut the edge like how you would cut open a box of milk/cream. Take care when cutting the edge as the batter will pour out from the opening that you have made.
You can also add roasted almond flakes on each layer to make it more tasty.
5) Preheat the oven at 200 degree Celsius for 15mins. Bake the cake for 30mins at 200 degrees Celsius.
The whole week I’ve been happily trying my hands out in baking in what I had previously failed to achieve due to my inexperienced.
I’ve baked the cinnamon rolls according to the youtube.com video which I had watched and worked out like a charm. Although the amount of flour is more than what is stated on the recipe list, which was expected of it, the first batch was fluffy and delicious. I’ve made two batches, experimenting on using evaporated milk and condensed milk.
The batch that I had made using evaporated milk turns out very well while the other, condensed milk turn out quite hard and didn’t raise up as expected of a bread dough. However since I had added chopped baking chocolates into the roll, the rolls turn out as nice as a homemade cookie. the kids love the chocolate condensed milk batch while the adults prefer the fluffy bun.
cinnamon rolls 1
At least this time my cinnamon rolls were much more delicious and successful compared to the first time I did two years back.
Anyway lastnight, I decided to try another baking recipe, puff pastry. Using only the below stated recipe, it took me two hours to let the pastry turn out into the right texture I had wanted.
500gm plain flour (more will be used when kneading the dough to become firm)
a pinch of salt
80gm of melted butter
200ml of water
I had mixed the butter and butter first and then added the flour into the mixture. Slowly I added the water, little by little while kneading the dough. Don’t use the electrical mixer or it will never work.
If the dough still sticks to your finger, add a palmful of flour and knead it throughly. Continue adding more flour if needed until you are satisfied. careful not to add too much flour.
After 15-20min of kneading the dough, flour out the rolling counter and flatten up your dough. Put 200g-250gm of pastry butter/margarine into the center and fold the edges (pinch them together) of the dough in the sequence of top with bottom and left with right, like how you would wrap a present.
Make sure that the pastry margarine is totally covered by the dough and pinch the dough together at all openings. Then taking a rolling pin, flatten out the dough slowly into a rectangle like form and fold the dough into two.
(a)Wrapping the dough with a plastic wrap, put the dough into the fridge (not freezer) for 20mins. I’ve tried putting it for 10mins, it didn’t work.
After 20mins and making sure that the dough is cold and has the same texture as your pastry margarine (dry butter), take it out from the fridge and roll it out again and fold it again. This will be your second turn of the kneading process. Keep repeating the process (a) for 6- 8 turns.
After you have repeated the kneading process for 6 turns or so, you can now start using your puff pastry dough. Before using the dough, make sure that you at least rest your dough after you took it out from the fridge for about 5-10mins.
I tried my hand at it and added apple pie filling into. Oh yeah if you were to add those wet fillings, make sure to drain almost completely the liquid of the filling before you put it into the puff pastry.
You can also put your excess dough in the fridge if you have decided that you had enough baking for the day and take it out the next day to continue with your puff pastry making.
I am craving for spaghetti. I love the sour taste of the tomato paste. I also love when the chef add in a healthy helping of minced meat and large sprinkles of mozarella cheese.. oh yeah!
And to share my love for food and making them, I’m posting up a few good videos on Youtube.com on puff pastry making and cinnamon rolls!!
I love cinnamon rolls and now that I know how to make them, I no longer need to travel far to get my yearly dosage of cinnamon rolls. Yummy!!
Unfortunately the owner of the video doesn’t allow imbedding her video, so I’ll just provide the link for those who are interested in making cinnamon rolls.
It’s the year of the golden Ox and that means, behold and hail the “Niu”!! I don’t speak much of mandarin but I do remember the meaning of “Niu” and all thanks to my good friend who taught me the differences between “Nyi-Ren” and “Niu-Ren” hehehe… Thanks Quiting!
At the first stroke of midnight on the first day of “Niu” year, here in Skudai, the sky were lighted up with showers of fire crackers, fireworks and it lasted for more than an hour. Chinese New Year has always been my favourite since I get to see lots and lots of fireworks fired off by the folks here. So its usually sleepless night on the first night of CNY.
Anyway I didn’t do much on the first day of CNY except cooking even though we had planned to go for a swim at Batu Layar. Luckily we didn’t head there because on the same day, four people drowned at Batu Layar; all were overwhelmed by the large waves and strong current of the wave.
Second day was at least quite interesting. Woke up at 6.30am, head out for breakfast at 7.30am. The roads were empty and you can literally sleep on it without the fear of getting run over. The air was fresh and crisp and it was sooo peaceful. I love CNY! Everyone is too busy sleeping in if they are in the city while the rest are all back in their Kampong, catching up with other relatives.
After breakfast we headed out to Gunung Pulai for a walkabout in the Hutan Simpanan (Reserved Forest). There is a waterfall there and considering the air is fresh and the day so fine, we had wanted to spend some time there. Unfortunately when we reached there, it was closed to the public and there were troops of fire fighters and police there. We weren’t quite sure what happened then until this morning.
A pilot from New Delhi, who flies as a hobby, was reported to be trapped for six hours in Gunung Pulai when his two-seater Cassena plane crashes earlier on Monday. No wonder we weren’t allowed entrance but the men in uniforms were kind and friendly enough to give us some allowances to the premise which we of course politely declined. If there are any men in uniforms in large numbers, I would never want to be caught trapped in them. Nu-uh!
Our little picnic cancelled, we then headed out to Ayer Hitam via the old highway with no tolls and where the roads snaked through the villages and towns. Smooth ride with lots of kids running around, some stark naked and dunking themselves in the rivers. Heheh.. Oh I do miss my old times in the Kampong..
Didn’t do anything much in Ayer Hitam except buy some of my favourites snacks and then head back home.
Not enough sleep, too much hot milk intake and visits to the auditors = Crazy Vampy!
Weee…
Actually the lack of sleep is because I was still too energised from last night even; going out with my boyfriend. It’s been two months or so since we really went out without any disturbance from both parties. I finally managed to wrangle my poor darling from his very tight work schedule and drag him to a movie in City Square (JB).
We watched House Bunny!! Hehehe.. Poor heroine of ours still portray the best of dumb blondes with lots of interludes of other dumb models strutting in micro-short box shorts and bras. The jokes were more of a mature content, like those SIMS2 Dirty Jokes, and skimpy outfits.
Overall the movie overwrote my junk content in my brain cells and installed itself in my RAM brain. hehehe.. Ok too much milk intake..
Didn’t manage to go anywhere since it was pouring during the late evening but we did get our dinner at the back alley of Jln Wong Ah Fook, aka retired red light district. Well that place used to be the port of the skin trade but it was eradicated the moment the old stinky river, Sungei Segget was reconstructed and covered by the beautiful night fountain.
My darling had his Tom Yam Soup which I think my own cooking tasted more better, more sour and most importantly more hotter!! So anyway, I had Sop Tulang Kambing.
Oh man.. their sop kambing was heaven! Unlike in Singapore where they really give us the bones with no meat, mistaking their customers as dogs instead of humans. The Sop Kambing was full of meat, full of ligaments, thoroughly cooked for hours that resulted the meat to literally hang off from the bones. AND it’s only RM6!! with bread of course…
Cheap, Good, Delicious!! My boyfriend seems to love it very much since he cleaned half of my share. Was I suppose to tell that to everyone? Ooops.. Hehehe.. I love u too darling…
Below are some pix I took with my handphone camera. Pardon the blurry pictures. I forgot to bring along my digital camera.
A little bit too much of Durian and not enough sleep and plain water proves that Durian still maintain its heatiness. I’m currently having the side effects of eating too much Durian but it’s nothing serious since my throat is only abit sore. Lots of plain water would do the trick to get me back up and running like the mad woman I am. Years of experience taught me to be very careful in eating Durian. Eating too much of it will not cause stomach ache for me but it will make me lose my voice.
Duh! Durian isn’t rated the king of fruits for nothing. Apart from the heavenly flavour and texture, the fruit is notorious in giving consumers body heatiness and a sore throat to remember. So the trick in eating this yummy fruit is to drink alot of plain water. Not fizzy or syrupy drinks but just plain water.
If you consume somewhat like 3 Durian fruits that weighs around 10kg, you best drink at every hour and especially when your throat starts to tingle. Don’t worry about rushing to the toilet as it’s good for you. Either you rush to the toilet for the day or suffer a painful sore throat the next day.
I was at the foot of Gunung Ledang yesterday noon but because I was still on the hunt for my Durian, we didn’t stop there. Luckily, when we were nearing Ayer Hitam from Tangkak old highway, we manage to get a great deal from the Durian seller. We were really lucky cuz the fruits were still being unloaded from the truck that ferried the Durians from the plantation. Hehehe… Lucky me! We bought around 60kg of Durians for the price of RM60 and some of them were D24.. muahaha
Thanks for dropping by! I love to rant and rave about almost everything and anything on my mind. Feel free to browse my articles and leave your comments.
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