Kuih Talam Gula Melaka

It's been one of my aspirations to make kuih talam, finally I decided to take the plunge and go for it. Unfortunately, it happened to be on a day when I've cleared my freezer and didn't have any pandan leaves! So on to plan B, which is to use pandan extract and cheat with some green food colouring. Alas, it was looking like it was not to be as the supermarket was out of green food colouring, all the colours of the rainbow except for green...sigh! But I really wanted to make this kuih, so on to plan C, palm sugar kuih talam....now palm sugar is something I had in plenty, yay! After much stirring over the hot pot, recipe said to stir till thicken but didn't specify that it took a long time! And then steaming, I think I had to steam 3 times the specified time, my kuih talam was done! Taste test = yummy! But something still wasn't satisfied, I think In my mind I was still thinking of the green pandan kuih talam....we shall prevail and try again, soon I think!

 

Cheat beef rendang

A fb friend recommended M&S Malaysian rendang paste, I didn't even realised that they stock such a thing and of course I have to test it out. It turned out to be not bad with a few adjustments that is, it definitely needed a bit more punch so extra chilli powder was added. And next time , I think I will add some kerisik for texture as the paste is ground very fine, other than that it is a good paste. Served with tomato rice and cucumber without the fuss of peeling shallots, chillies, garlic and pounding spices, nothing to complain about!

 

Pistachio, cranberry and white chocolate cookies

Another moreish cookie to add to my repertoire! American style cookies like this one always taste fabulous, unfortunately they are also not very healthy hence only to be eaten occasionally! So this batch is to go to the office to be shared with others else it will all end up in my tummy!

 

Sweet and sour pork ribs

Finally, I managed to find the time to make this dish. Chopping the ribs into bite size and frying them in batter does take some time but once that is done, the sauce just takes moments. While cooking, I had my kitchen door open to dispel the greasy smell you get when deep frying as a result the smell of the finished dish floated out of my kitchen to a group of my neighbours who happen to standing outside chatting and I heard comments about what a lovely smell, just reminds me of my neighbours when I was a child commenting on lovely smells from my grandmother's cooking.

 

Pork ribs in Vietnamese pho

Hmmm, this is sort of a hybrid dish of the Bak Kut Teh and the Vietnamese Beef Pho. I had some leftover pork ribs but no Bak Kut Teh seasoning, I had some Vietnamese pho paste but no beef, so it was a no brainier, mix the two together and fingers crossed that it will taste right. Next, ransacked the larder, found some mushrooms, ransacked the fridge and found some lamb lettuce, in they go into the pot. Turns put, it's not too bad really, I had it with koay teow for lunch and then rice for dinner, works best with rice and some chilli padi, of course!

 

Corn cakes.

I've never had corn cakes before and these are my first so I really can't say if they taste right. What I can say though is that this is a great way to get my toddler to eat vegetables that have not been mashed into an unrecognisable form. In this version, I had chicken, red pepper and corn and as I write this I also realised that I had forgotten to add in basil when I cooked it! Nevertheless, the corn cakes still tasted fab!

 

Individual chicken pie

Individual chicken pie...this is my cheat recipe for days when I'm too tired to cook from scratch. Simply get hold of ready made puff pastry, a tin of cream of mushroom, frozen peas, carrots and chicken breast. With a quick flash in the pan to stir fry the chicken, leave to cool. While waiting, roll out the puff pastry and then add a little of each ingredient followed by 15 minutes in the oven...serve with a salad and you will end up with a simple meal cooked in no time and very little washing up..yay!

The cut open pie...

 

Assam Pedas Fish

I have made Assam Pedas fish a few times now, though the taste is passable, the fish is not. What I mean is I'm not used to the type of fish found in this region and is fast discovering the most of them don't cook well in curries, most disintegrate into the curry so I end up with fish flavoured curry rather than curry with pieces of fish in it! However, my search for the perfect fish to curry here seems to be over as the plaice that I used seemed to hold together pretty well and tastes quite similar to the ray or pari which goes really well with the assam sauce. This time round, I also have my daun kesom or Vietnamese coriander which makes it a truly fragrant dish...Yumms!

 

Blueberry Friand

Finally, I managed to test out the recipe for blueberry friands. It's from one of baking books and every time I flip through the pages to find something to bake, the image catches my eye and think to myself 'that looks so yummy' but somehow I never tried to bake it till now. It's a very rich and indulgent piece of cake and not for everyday eating! The taste was sublime but I think I need to work on the egg whites as the cake was not as airy as I expected....till much to learn with regards to beat egg whites till the right stage! But still a delicious bake.

 

Biskut Telinga (Yee Chai Peng)

I made these a few weeks ago but did not have the chance to blog it till now. Now, what exactly are these? Some call it ear biscuits and some call it hats due to its shape, this is one of the many traditional biscuits I used to enjoy as a kid. No Oreos or Famous Amos then but just good old hand crafted biscuits. Until I made these, I never knew or even questioned what was in them, now I know and now I can keep these biscuits going on for a little longer before they dissappear in time. My hat off to these tasty little morsels!

 

8 Plaited Loaf (Chollah)

Inspired by the latest episode of the great British bake-off, a baking contest for amateur bakers (for those of you not familiar with UK tv), I tried my hand at making the technical challenge which is the 8 plaited or braided loaf. Loaves with this type of braiding is also known as Chollah or Challah which is a special Jewish braided bread eaten on Sabbath and holidays.With instructions very like a knitting pattern, I think I managed a fairly passable plait, it would probably be shot down by the competition judge as rubbish looking but I'm rather proud of it! The recipe for the dough though was not the same as the one used in the show but a ThangZhong method bread recipe that I've used before.

 

 

The baked loaf, I used a milk wash rather than a egg wash



Cross section of the loaf, light and fluffy



Deep breath before attempting the twists

 

Second proof before baking

Hong Kong Chee Cheong Fun

I've never really eaten Hong Kong Chee Cheong Fun till I got here and went for Dim Sum with friends. Turns out, I rather fancy them and after a Dim Sum making session with the cooking club, I was bitten by the Dim Sum bug and decided to try making this dish. I have made koay teow previously and this looked rather similar, only problem was previously I had trouble keeping the thickness even as I seem to own a rather lopsided steamer! After some research, which basically means watching Utube videos (And getting side tracked by the videos leading into other things) I found one method where foil baking dishes were used by 'floating' them on boiling water in a wok. It worked out really well, result below. The filling for this cheong fun is a simple mix of spiring onions and dried prawns (no lap cheong at the shop).

 

Sup Ekor

Oh what joy when I saw ox tail for sale at Makro!! It was to be my very first purchase with my new membership at Makro, so excited I was that I didnt even realised that I dropped my new membership card at the car park! Back to the ox tail, I have been wanting to make this aromatic soup for a long long time, it comes to mind particularly during Winter. And now I know where I can get ox tail and have a tried & tested recipe, I will definitely be making this again.



 



Chai Kueh

One of my favourite kuih from Penang is the Chai Kueh, translated it basically means vegetable 'snack', I have yet to find an accurate translation for the word kuih/kueh to English. Anyway back to this kueh, as 'seng kuang' is a rarity here, I was experimenting with waterchestnuts, it turned out to be a good substitute, only caution would be that it remains cruchier and is sweeter after cooking so the amount has to be slightly reduced. My chai kueh turned out pretty good I must say... translucent chewy skin but not rubbery, if you get what I mean. Dunked in chilli sauce, they are lovely little morsels!

Steamed in authentic bamboo steamer

My version is a simple mix of carrots and waterchestnuts

Cooking club 2 - Penang Food

Our cooking club had its second session yesterday and it was Penang food...yay! We had a great lunch with Roti Jala and Chicken Curry, Fried Rice, Char Koay Teow, Murtabak. For dessert, we had Seri Muka, Rojak and Chendol.

Penang Char Koay Teow

The dried KT, pict is upside
down, sorry!

We can't have Penang food without Char Koay Teow right? So off to the shop to get some koay teow and luck would have it, no fresh koay teow was available so the dried version will have to do. Since I've not used the dried version before, it was a matter of closing both eyes and pointing randomly at the shelf! Lucky for me, the brand I bought was good enough. It did require some rinsing under the tap with cold water to remove the excess starch.

My contribution - fried koay teow

Murtabak

My other contribution was Murtabak and this was my challenge as I had yet to make roti dough that I was happy with. I decided to go for Kuali's recipe this time and kneaded the life out of the dough. I was on a mission to ensure that I get real stretchy dough this time round. I think I might have found the ideal recipe as I made a few roti kosong with some of the dough and it did produce flaky roti.

Contribution #2 - Murtabak

Sarah's 2nd Birthday lunch

After as small family lunch on Sarah's actual birthday, its time to party with friends and neighbours on the following Saturday, so its finger food galore!

In the line-up we have :

Marinated figs with mozzarella and prosciutto
This little kebab is described as the modern version of pineapple on a stick. Laced with basil infused olive oil for a dressing, it really does get the taste buds going!

Baked goats cheese with honey
Little medallions of goats cheese lightly baked and drizzled with honey, served on a bed of spinach leaves. I'm generally not a fan of large chunks of cheese but the combination of flavours here (this includes getting a mouthful of spinach) is just right!

Smoked Salmon with fennel slaw on toasted spelt bread

To tingle the taste bud further, there is smoked salmon given a sophisticated twist with fennel slaw, sprinkled with fried capers (who would have thought to fry capers! When fried, they become little salty crispy nuggets, yumm indeed!). All this served on toasted spelt bread. Oh yes, don't forget, topped with avocado too!

Chicken and mushroom pastry puffs

And there is something for the less adventurous, triangles of puff pastry filled with chicken and mushroom pie filling. Get them while they are hot!

Sausage, cheese, tomato ciabatta squares
This is one for the kids and the kids in adults, I mean who doesn't like sausages, right? Since this is a finger food party, the sausages are sliced and placed on top of ciabatta squares, spread with tomato sauce (proper sauce mind you, not maggi tomato ketchup) and topped with mozzarella. Pinned in place with a cocktail stick and then toasted till the cheese is melted and golden!

 Bread Salad and Apple Coleslaw
To accompany the food, there is of course the salad. I made two types of salads as I've noticed that there are two kinds of vege eaters, one that goes for the green leafy variety and the other that eats vegetables but not the floppy green kind! So the two selected to cater to everyone's perference are a bread salad with an Italian dressing (the green leafy one) and a simple apple coleslaw ( for those adverse to all things green and leafy)

Vanilla ice-cream with balsamic blueberries
To end the meal, a nice creamy vanilla ice-cream topped with balsamic blueberries and a piece of wafer. The balsamic blueberries were made by simply heating blueberries with sugar and balsamic vinegar till just the berries are just about bursting. And no, I did not make the ice-cream but I did grow the mint!

Pineapple rolls
And lastly, something to keep the hand occupied while we talk away, pineapple rolls. This is a typical cookie during festivities at home. Made with melt in the mouth pastry and homemade pineapple jam.

And that is the end of one of the biggest solo cooking feat I have attempted this year, now to put my feet up and let someone else feed me for a change! :)

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Chocolate Fudge Cake

It's Sarah's 2nd birthday and now that she is old enough to have favourites when it comes to eating, the menu will have to be filled with her favourite things.

First up, the all important birthday cake and its no contest that it will have to be a chocolate cake. That was the easy part, the hardest part was deciding what shape and theme it would be. Since she practically eats and breathes Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, it did cross my mind to make a Mickey cake but in the end I decided to bite the bullet and go for the whole thing. So after a few weeks of looking a MMCh cakes, my head was spining and I practically saw Mickey and co everywhere I looked but I digress so back to baking and cooking. After having spent a fortune on ready rolled icing, I was raring to go, unfortunately the little lady did not go to bed till 11pm, which meant I could not start till then. So it was in the middle of the night till the early hours that I was crafting away in the kitchen and guess what, there is a certain peace to the stillness of the hour which made it very pleasant to work.

My biggest challenge to date

The sliced cake ..yummy!

Closeup on the front door detail

My shaky attempt at writing

 

The uncovered cake

The bits n pieces prior to assembly






Vegetarian curry puffs

After a curry puff experiment as short while ago to find a pastry that I like, I  was armed and ready for the next call for fingerfood. It came in the form a farewell for 2 fellow Malaysians. These were made using a sort of hybrid between the spiral curry puff and the normal curry puff skin. As for the filling, on the recommendation of Keep learning keepsmiling, I used a mix of the Scotty brand baby potatoes and the normal potatoes. The result was light crispy and flaky skinned puffs with fluffy potato filling...yumm!

The hybrid skin was flaky and melt in the mouth

The fluffy filling, fragranced with curry leaves ... yum!

Rhubarb and Orange crumble

In trying to keep up with the abundance of rhubarb from the garden, we have another rhubarb dish. This time it is the good ole crumble, admittedly I'm not a fan but the classic must be attempted and attempted I did! Eaten with a large helping of custard ...errr, store bought I'm afraid as the crumble was made late at night and I was not going to be stirring the pot making custard. Next in the rhubarb series I think will be a jam, that way, I can use up more of the rhubarb.

Pre-custard, photos with the custard made it look rather unappertising

Rhubarb and Almond tart

The rhubarb plant in my garden was flourishing and it was time to get eating rhubarb, I chose a rhubarb and almond tart recipe from a new cookbook I got rather than the usual rhubarb crumble which does not tickle my fancy. It turned out quitely lovely as the rhubarb was poached in sugar water to rid them of the tart taste but only till just tender so they still hold their shape after baking which gave the tart a lovely texture. The almond sponge was just the right partner in taste. To bring it all together, the tart is best served with cream or icecream but  I only had evaporated milk which sort of worked too! In fact I liked it so much that I made again in a couple of days as a get well soon gift for a friend who injured her ankle.

Tender rhubarb encased in almond sponge...delicious!

The uncut tart, a little singed on one side as I had to
attend to the toilet needs of the little one

Elderflower Jelly with Summer Fruits

This time round, it's cooking for a friend's birthday BBQ and the weatherman says its HOT, HOT, HOT!! So time for something light and refreshing and what could be more refreshing than nicely chilled jelly with fresh fruits in it? However, after rumaging through my larder, I found that I've run out of my 'ready made' jelly mix. Deep breath and dive into Google to search for jelly recipes. Since its for a friend and her guests, I choose failproof Jamie's recipe but in a moment of bravery decided to make some tweaks to make it suitable for kids. So a quick 5 minutes for make it and pop it into the fridge, with all fingers crossed, I went to bed. The next morning, as early as 6am I was up to check if they had set and tasted fine. I can safely report that my 6am Jelly breakfast tasted sublime :)

Elderflower and Promegranate

All packed and ready to impress

Belacan fried chicken

It's our last pilates class and we planned to have a potluck lunch after the class, so once again my head is spinning trying to think of something to cook. Since this group is not keen on spicy food as well as there will be kids, it had to be something without chilli. The day before the potluck, I was at the supermarket, wandering the aisles for inspiration. I ended up with chicken wings and some odds and ends and no ideas! 

There's a saying that when you are stuck for answers to sleep on it. Sleep on it I did, and I got up half an hour before the alarm clock wnet off with belacan chicken in my head! Problem solved, I had chicken wings and the other ingredients were staples in my storecupboard...err, I did have to do a run to the shops for oil though..but to cut a long story short, I happily contributed my belacan fried chicken wings to the potluck and even the 5 year old girl loved it, and I was then christened the 'fried chicken wing auntie'!



Dried Prawn Sambal Buns

When the ladies agreed to a picnic, it was time to get cooking but because it was a picnic I had to think of something that was easily portable and won't require too many eating utensils. Since I was baking bread again recently, I decided to go with buns filled with something.... the something took a long time to materialise, at one point it was sambal ikan bilis, another, it was chicken curry then it was sambal udang kering (dried prawns). These 3 were going round and round in my head. I had no clue where I'd stashed the ikan bilis and was not up to rumaging around my larder, so that was out. I was too lazy to get to town to buy dried prawns so that was 50/50 ... chicken curry, I can get all ingredients from the local super market so it was looking like a winner. However, come the day before the picnic, I found myself going in and out of asian grocery stores hunting for dried prawns...it is was to be sambal udang kering!

6:00 am goes the alarm on picnic day and I was up and the dough of the bun got going in no time. Next the sambal, with the help of my processer, in goes all the ingredients, a couple of whizzies later, all was fried up and ready for the buns... all was going like clockwork except for the fact that it turned out to be quite a cold morning so the dough was taking its time to rise...oh oh! The buns were baked down to the wire, car engine was already revving when they were still in the oven! Needless to say, we made it to the picnic and had a lovely time!



The buns on display

Makan Makan