Back to My Kitchen...

Lapis Legit Ling CC

2008-09-09T12:19:00.001+08:00

A
350 g mentega
250 g gula
Kocok mentega dan gul

B
35 kuning telur (kocok tersendiri)

C
50 g tepung terigu

A+B+C

Lapis Surabaya Ling CC

2008-09-09T12:18:00.001+08:00

30 telur
300 mentega
250 gula halus
100 tepung

Lapis Surabaya

2008-09-09T12:07:00.002+08:00

20 telur
225 g gula
100 g terigu
2 sdk susu
250 g mentega
Mentega, gula dikocok, masukan telur satu persatu lalu susu and terakhir terigu.
Bagi jadi 3 bagian. 1 bagian masukan tepung coklat.

Egg Tart

2008-09-09T12:04:00.002+08:00

Kulit for 1
50 g mentega
10 g gula
80 gr terigu
1 egg

Isi for 2
1/2 tin of evaporated milk
10 egg (take 5 white egg)
300 g sugar

Air, gula, pandang didihkan. Dinginkan. Masukan telur yg sudah diaduk. Saring dgn kain.

Cai Kwe

2008-09-09T12:03:00.001+08:00

250 g tepung beras
4 sendok tepung ganji penuh
10 sendok minyak goreng
garam
600 gr air mendidih

Air didikan, trus masukan ke tepung campur

Hekeng

2008-09-09T11:56:00.002+08:00

1 kg shrimp
3oo g lard
3 egg
250 g plain flour
white pepper to taste
soya bean sheets

Pineapple tart

2008-09-09T11:54:00.002+08:00

500 g butter
900 g plain flour
300 g sugar
1 egg

Mix butter and sugar until white. Add in flour.

Pineapple jam:
5 pineapple
5 g sugar
1 tbs flour

Keju goreng

2008-09-09T11:51:00.001+08:00

500 g glutinous flour
7 egg
200 g shredded cheese
100 g sugar
50 g sesame seeds

Bak Chang

2008-09-09T11:48:00.002+08:00

3 kg glutonious rice
1.2 kg peanut
.5 kg chestnut
100 g chinese mushroom
20 salted egg yolk
350 g dried shrimp
1 kg pork
.5 kg pork belly

Rendang Sapi

2008-09-09T11:29:00.001+08:00

1/2 kg beef
50 gr chilli
4 onion
7 cloves garlic
5 candle nuts
coconut milk fr 1 coconut
2 lemongrass
2cm galangga
3 bay leaves
salt and palm sugar to taste

I'm back

2008-09-09T11:12:00.002+08:00

Hiatus for almost 2 years, I am back!!
Finally I have time for this. I have stopped work for 2 months, preparing for my wedding and migration. It's definetely a good time to recharge and spend time with my family before leaving Singapore.

Anyway, I was browsing my mum's recipe book few days ago and found few good recipes. I guess putting in online will be the best way for me to refer back when I need them later.

Ayam Kalasan

3 chicken (cut into 4 each)
1 fresh coconut (water only)
1 bulb garlic
4 small onion
3 stalk lemon grass
5 daun salam (bay leaves)
1 tbs coriander powder
palm sugar and sweet soy sauce (to taste)

Put all ingredients into a pot. Make sure the chicken pieces are covered with coconut water. If it's not enough, you may add water. After 2 hours, boil all ingredients until the water dries up.

Lightly deep fry the pieces.

I have Ayam Penyet's recipe as well. However, it's not detailed. Well, I just have to play the guessing game, anyway the basic ingredients are good enough for me to experiment.

chicken
candle nuts
turmeric
garlic
onion
bay leaves
lemongrass
galangga
coriander powder

Blend all except chicken until it's soft. Add some water. Cook until the liquid remaining is halved. Strain and use this stock for the crispy bits. Add equal amount of maizena and rice flour.

No updates

2006-10-10T22:18:00.000+08:00

I haven't been able to update this blog recently as I have started to begin my career. I will try to cook and bake more when I settle down with the job:) Take care people!

Mango Sago

2006-08-26T16:47:00.000+08:00

An easy afternoon treat.

Ingredients:

750 g of very ripe mango (about 3 small ones)
60 g of pearl sago
1/4 cup of evaporated milk
some tadpole jelly (optional)
some sugar

Boil a pot of water. Add in sago. Once it turns transparent, the sago is cooked. Pour sago into a sieve and run cold water onto it. Sieve until dry and put into a large bowl. Add in 2 tbs of sugar. Mix well.

Blend 2 mangos to form smooth puree. Add in milk. Blend well. You might need to add in some syrup depending on the sweetness of your mangos.
Cube the remaining mango. Set aside.

Blend ice cube till fine.

Pour the mango + milk into a small bowl. Add in some mango cubes, sago and tadpole. Top with some blended ice. Enjoy...

Agar-agar Curd Punch

2006-08-21T17:42:00.000+08:00

When a friend of mine in Sydney told me they are going to a spanish restaurant tonight, the first thing that came to my mind was Sangria. I wanted to make this for tonight until I realised that the bottles that are sitting in the fridge, are white and sparkling wine. Never mind, I will buy a bottle of red next time.

Then, I remembered what Mum said yesterday. She went to my aunt's place and was served a glass of agar-agar drink. She said, very easy to made; 1 pack of agar-agar and 4.5 lit of water??? That's lots of water for 1 pack of agar-agar. After her explaination, I now realised that, the agar-agar is not going to solidify like the normal agar-agar. But instead, the agar-agar forms extreme watery soft curd as it's so diluted.

So what about the sangria? From this fruity cocktail, I was inspired to throw some diced orange, lime and nashi pear cubes into the agar-agar curd. It will be better if I had peaches or nectarines in my fridge:)

For 20 servings:

1 pack of agar-agar powder
4.5 lit water
400-500 gr of rock sugar (it's not as sweet as white sugar)
3 pandan leaves

Bring all to boil. Let cool and chill.

Garnish:
2 oranges
6 limes
1 nashi pear
ice cubes

Pour into a glass and plunk in the fruit cubes and ice. Enjoy....

Note: It's nice even without the fruit cubes:)

Another Mango Salad

2006-08-20T21:53:00.000+08:00

I made another mango salad. This morning, I bought a raw mango from the wet market. The other time when I made mango salad, the mango was too ripe and it's sweet instead of sour. Firm and sour, the raw mango is just perfect for salad. Today, I added some turnip juliennes for more crunch. Fresh and delicious!

Egg Tarts

2006-08-20T16:39:00.000+08:00

Egg tarts anyone? Here is the recipe from my auntie who bakes very well.

Crust:
170 gr butter
250 gr plain flour
1 egg
1/2 tbs sugar

Mix all together in a bowl. Press dough into the mould so that it covers the bottom and the side of the tart mould.

Custard:
1/2 can (187.5 ml) evaporated milk
7 eggs
240 gr sugar
500 ml water
5 pandan leaves

Boil water, sugar and pandan leaves until sugar has melted. Chuck away the pandan leaves. Leave to cool to room temperature. In a separate large bowl, break the eggs. Add in the syrup and milk. Strain the mixture through a muslin strainer.

Spoon the custart filling into the prepared tart shells. Bake for bout 25 minutes (200C)

Tofu and Prawn Fritter

2006-08-19T21:34:00.000+08:00

Ingredients:

1 block of hard/firm tofu around 7x7x3 cm
5 extra large grey prawn, peeled, deveined and removed head
2 cloves garlic
2 chilli padi
1 egg
1.5 tbs rice flour
1/2 tbs corn starch
1/2 tapioca starch
1 tsp pepper
salt

Blend tofu, prawns, egg, garlic and chilli until smooth. Add in the flour. Fry in hot oil until golden. Served with some carrot/cucumber.

Putu Piring/Putu Bambu

2006-08-12T15:10:00.000+08:00

Putu piring/putu bambu is a local traditional steamed cake of the South East Asian. It's soft and has cottony texture with a dash of palm sugar in the middle. It's normally served hot on a banana leaf with some grated coconut. Putu piring is pupular in Singapore and Malaysia whereas Putu Bambu is a more well known term in Indonesia. The ingredients are basically the same,the only difference is the moulds. Putu piring uses flat plate mould where as putu bambu uses bamboo mould of about 5-7 cm height.

This cake always brings back my childhood memory in Indonesia. At where I used to stay, we rarely found "abang-abang"(meaning brother---aka the seller), selling putu bambu on his push card at night. I would be so excited when I heard the "tu-tu" sound given out by the steamer. As the abang-abang didn't frequent our street that often, putu bambu was always the long awaited night snack. I remembered once when Mum and I, heard the faint "tu-tu" sound after our dinner. Knowing that I love putu, Mum asked our helper to track where the sound came from, and buy a dozen of them. Wrapped in a banana leaf, the putu bambu smelled wonderfully pleasant. Once I put it into my mouth, a warm squirt of palm sugar burst out. The combination of sweet palm sugar with slightly salty grated coconut was just marvelous!

After reading a recipe about "putu ayu", which is another type of steamed cake, I get inspired to find putu bambu/putu piring recipe. I managed to find only one Singaporean's recipe from the net. There is another Indonesian's recipe, though the name is Putu Ayu, the recipe somewhat similar to putu piring's recipe.

This time, I tried the Singapore's recipe. The putu came out soft and cottony, however when it turned cold, the texture became harder. I will try the Indonesian recipe next time and see if it remains soft even it has turned cold.

Skin:
2 cups of rice flour
160 ml water + 1/2 tsp of salt, mixed well
6 pandan leaves, torn into pieces

Filling:
1/3 cup of desiccated coconut with 1/2 tsp of salt, steamed
150 g palm sugar/gula melaka/gula jawa

For serving:
banana leaves
1/3 cup coconut without skin, grated

On a frying pan, roast rice flour with pandan leaves in batches for about 3-4 minutes. Take out the leaves and let cool.

Combine finely chopped palm sugar with desiccated coconut.

Pour water on to the roasted flour.

Using a sieve, press the dough through to form A breadcrump look alike texture.

Take a spoonful of A onto the mould. Add in 2 tsp of palm sugar filling and cover it with another spoonful of A.

Steam for 5 minutes. Serve on a banana leaf and sprinkle with steamed grated coconut.

Korean Snack and Candy

2006-08-09T23:05:00.000+08:00

Multi-grain, sweet, salty, spicy, crunchy.... utterly delicious...

I was delighted to find this in the local supermarket, here in Singapore:)

This candy has a layer of icy cool creamy flavour sandwiched in between the harder mint layers.
Found this at a Korean grocer at Cineleissure Orchard:)

Otak-otak

2006-08-09T16:35:00.000+08:00

This is a popular Indonesia fish cake wrapped in a banana leaf. The Indonesian type is different from the otak-otak found in Singapore or Malaysia which is spiced up more complicatedly with chilli and spices. It's easy to make it here in Singapore as fish paste is readily available in the supermarket or wet market. Otak-otak is normally serves with peanut sauce. As my family loves eating otak-otak without the sauce, the whole process was even easier for me:)

400 g of fish paste (2 packs of "Bobo" brand fish paste)
1 pack/200g of Kara coconut milk/thick coconut milk
240 g of tapioca starch
2 egg whites
2 tbs of spring onion, chopped finely
1 big clove garlic, chopped
1 tbs spanish onion, chopped
1.5 tsp salt
1.5 tbs sugar
touch of seasoning

Mix all ingredients together. Spoon a teaspoon ful on a banana leaf and stapple both ends up. Bake until cooked around 5-6 mins.

Note: boil banana leaves for 3 minutes to make them easier for wrapping.

Longan Frappe

2006-08-06T15:40:00.000+08:00

Few bunches of longans had been sitting at one corner of the fridge, everyone was too lazy to peel and eat the fruit. Fine... I made a frappe out of them before they turn bad.

20 longans
10 ice cubes

Blend!

Chilli Crab, anyone?

2006-08-04T22:10:00.001+08:00

Many times we would eat at this place when my parents, friends from overseas are here in Singapore. It used to be in my "must have list" when I came back from Sydney for uni breaks. This place is none other than the "Macpherson Kopitiam", somewhere in Serangoon area. I had tried many places, but still I think this is where you can find the best Chilli Crabs, and not to mention other kinds of seafood.

The crabs are from Srilanka, though I'm not sure if it's similar to the Mud Crab in Australia. You could choose the medium to huge, real huge one! For the crabs and "lala/pipih", we always order from this stall somewhere opposite the famous turtle soup store.We haven't had any "empty, meatless" crabs, they are always full and the crabs are cooked just well that they are not overly hard and not forgetting that they are always fresh. We have another favourite stall somewhere in the middle of the foodcourt for the best grilled stingray with sambal. Besides those, we had roasted chicken wings and oyster omellete.

My family loves seafood particularly crabs and prawns. I enjoyed eating these two things when my parents are around. They will peel for us (my sis and I, bro is skillful enough in this), so that we could eat as much as them. If not, it's going to be a battle to get the meat out, especially those from the claws. Today, my brother was kind enough to peel us some:)

We dun quite like the crabs cooked with bihun though. Perhaps because it's not their house special. Other than that, today's meals were scrumptious!

Black Pepper Beef

2006-08-04T14:21:00.000+08:00

Ingredients:

150g Topside Beef, sliced thinly across the grain.
(in a bowl, add in 1/6 tsp of bicarbonate of soda with 1/4 cup of water. Add in sliced beef (to tenderise the beef). Let it rest while you prepare other stuff)
1/4 carrot, sliced
2 stalks celery, sliced diagonally
1 tbs of coarse black papper
salt
1 tbs of oyster sauce
1 tbs of dark soy sauce
4 cloves of garlic, smashed
1 tbs of cornflour
1/4 cup water

Rince the beef with water, add in cornflour, mix well. In a wok, heat up 3 tbs of oil. Fry garlic till golden. Add in beef and black pepper. Follow by carrot and celery. Spice it up with the seasonings. Add water and wait till boil.

Claypot Simmered Tofu with Prawn

2006-08-04T14:03:00.000+08:00

Ingredients:

250 g of soft tofu (cut into large cubes)
1/2 carrot, sliced
2/3 cup of button mushroom (fresh/canned)
6 grey prawns, devined
1 tbs of fried shallot
1 tbs of chopped chinese celery
4 garlic cloves (smashed)
salt
pepper
1 tbs of fish sauce
1/2 tsp of seasoning
1/2 cup of water
cornstarch mixed with water for thickening

With 3 tbs of oil, fry smashed garlic till golden in a non-stick pan. Set aside garlic. Use the remaining oil to fry the tofu cubes until slightly golden. Set aside. Still using the same oil, stir fry carrot and mushroom. Put garlic, tofu, and vegetable inside the claypot together with 1/2 cup of water. Add salt, pepper, fish sauce and seasoning. Simmer until water 1/4 less. Add in prawns, making sure it's just cooked, but not overcooked. Stir in cornstarch. Dress it up with chopped chinese celery and fried shallots.

Chocolate Ice Cube Drink

2006-08-01T18:25:00.000+08:00

This idea is adapted from Nordljus. It's fun, pretty and just nice for this hot weather. As the recipe calls for basic ingredients that you will have at home, I thought why not give it a try...

Chocolate Ice Cube
200 ml low fat milk
50 g of dark chocolate
2 tbs of Milo
1.5 tbs of sugar

Simmer all ingredients until chocolate is completely melted. Let cool. Pour the mixture into ice cube tray and freeze.

Pour skim milk/low fat milk over the choc ice cube. Sure loved by kids!!

Pics for Japanese Cheesecake

2006-08-01T10:31:00.000+08:00

I am so annoyed with Blogger! From yesterday night I was trying to attached some pics of the Superb Japanese Cheesecake into the entry but I couldn't. Ok, fine, I thought. So, I wrote another entry on Japanese Curry, and same thing, I could't attach a pic too. Fine...........

This morning until now, I have been trying to attach pics for the Japanese Cheesecake entry again. Still... unsuccessful... Puphhhhhhhhhhhh......
Tried the Curry entry... hoooray, it's ok. Tried the cheesecake entry again, again, again and again... untill I get very agitated by the whole processes.

Anyway, I decided that I will just post them here in this entry...

Japanese Curry Rice

2006-07-31T22:11:00.000+08:00

It seems, it's all about Japanese today:) I didn't realise it until I'm typing this entry's title that the stuff that I made today are Japanese.

Japanese Curry is one real easy treat for dinner. I always thought that Japanese curry is as hard as other type of more commonly known curry like the South East Asian or the Indian curry until one day, a friend of us cooked us one big pot of boiling hot of Japanese curry with crisp chicken cutlet covered with golden breadcrumbs. Surprise surprise, it's made with Japanese Curry Block widely sold in the supermarkets. I love the S&B hot one. The curry taste is not too overwhelming and goes perfectly with plain rice.

As I couldn't find presliced-thin chicken breast fillet here, I replaced it with tempura prawns. Slicing chicken breast that thin is just beyond my skill. Hence, fast and easy, prawns!

1/2 pack of S&B Golden Curry sauce mix jumbo
2 Spanish Onion (sliced)
200 g of meat (beef/pork-cubed)
5-6 carrots (cut into bite size)
2 potato (cubed)
water

Stir fry onion with little bit of oil. Add in carrot and beef. Pour in 3 bowls of water. Lastly the potato cubes. Served with plain rice and fried prawns.

15 grey prawns, peel the skin and devein
1/2 tsp of salt
1/2 tsp of pepper
1/2 tsp of chilli flakes/sliced chilli
2 tbs of plain flour

Marinate the prawns with all the ingredients except the flour for 15 minutes. Add flour and mix it with the prawns well. Deep fry with hot oil until they are golden crisp.

Superb Japanese Cheesecake

2006-07-31T18:56:00.000+08:00

Japanese Cheesecake is always in my list of "must try to bake" list. As I was really bored this afternoon, out of a sudden, I felt like making Japanese Cheesecake. I searched the net for recipes, looking carefully at each recipe and also the comments given. I finally decided that I'm going to use Irene Oon's recipe. Knowing that I didn't have some of the ingredients listed, I dragged myself to the supermarket. Lucky that it's kind of cloudy, so I didn't have to bare with the heat.

Waited for 2 hours for this cake to be ready, I am proudly very very satisfied with this 1st trial. Perhaps the cake should be ready after 1 hr and 10 minutes, but when I tested it with long sate stick, it didn't come out real clean. After 2 hours, the top had browned to the tone that is similar to those bakeries' kind. I tested it again with the stick, still not real clean. Sigh... I decided to give the tempting cake a try as if the cake was sreaming at me, "Try me, try me!". Took out the springform and I was a bit of disappointed as it doesn't look very done. Heck, I sliced a piece and put a spoonful into my mouth. Heavennnnnnnnnnn..... it melts in my mouth, just like those sold, hm... even better perhaps. I am all smiles as I aced it this time... Thank you Irene for sharing this marvelous recipe. Over here I changed the Irene's recipe a little.

250 g of Philladelphia Cream Cheese
50 g of butter
100 ml milk
6 egg yolks
40 g of cornflour
50 g of plain four
juice fr 1/4 of lemon
lemon zest

Heat cream cheese and butter under high heat in the microwave to soften the cream cheeese. Make sure that the cream cheese are well mixed. Some sites recommend to blend the cream cheese with the butter but I didn't. Add in milk. When cold, fold in egg yolks, flour, lemon juice and the zest. Put aside.

6 egg whites
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
140 g sugar

Beat egg whites and cream of tartar until foamy. Follow by sugar and keep mixing until soft peaks are formed.
Fold in the cream cheese mixture and continue beating with slow speed until the batter is well combine. Do not over mixed. Pour into a 20cm springform pan. Wrap the springform pan with really wet towel as recommended by Rachel. Bake with until toothpick comes out clean.

You could glaze the top with some jam as well
1 tbs of jam (any kind, I used strawberry)
1 tbs of water
Mix them well and glaze over the cake top when cake is cold.

Note: After reading Rachel's experiences in making japanese cheesecake, I decided to use the towel method instead. You could perhaps use bain marrie method, do tell me the result.

Try this, try this recipe! :)

Mie Ayam (Noodle with Chicken)

2006-07-29T15:17:00.000+08:00

As I have written in the earlier post, it's hard to find authentic Indonesian restaurants here. Though there are some emerging in the town area, most only have fried/grilled chicken in their menu. Mie Ayam is still rare here in Singapore.

Back in Borneo, people are not very into Mie Ayam. There is only one store that I remembered selling this noodle. The reason that we ate there was because it's near to my school. It's opposite an old nostalgic cinema, which is now converted into a supermarket. The shop has a sate stall, mie ayam pangsit stall and a dessert/drink stall. We (young school kids) loved to order Mie Ayam Pangsit and some sticks of sate. To complete the meal, we always had"Es Shanghai", similar to S'pore "Ice Kachang" but a little more chocolatie. I am not sure if the shop is still there today, as I haven't gone back to my hometown for almost 6-7 years.

I had more of Mie Ayam only when I was in Sydney. The Indonesian students love this. Two restaurants that are famous for their Mie Ayam are Pinangsia at Kingsford and Cafe Joy at Chinatown. Personally, I prefer Pinangsia's. It's noodle is thinner and serving is smaller. My first attempt of making this was when I was at H's place. It's not that hard... Ok let's cook!

A. Braised chicken with mushroom

120 g chicken breast fillet, cubed
1 can of button mushroom, quartered
3 garlic cloves, minced finely
1 tbs of sweet soy sauce
1 tbs of oyster sauce
2 tbs of dark soy sauce
salt to taste
1/2 cup of water

Fry garlic until golden, add in chicken and mushroom. Followed by other ingredients, bring to boil.

B. For Noodle
1 pack of egg noodle, bring to boil until soft
2 tbs of minced fried garlic
1 tbs of fish sauce
1 tbs of corn oil--cooking oil
salt to taste
1/2 tsp of pepper

C. Garnish
fried shallot
1 small block of fish cake, boiled and sliced thinly
chinese celery, chopped
some green vegies eg. chai sym, boiled briefly
fried wonton

Dry noodle once it's soft. In a bowl, add in oil, minced fried garlic, fish sauce, salt and pepper. Mix well. Add in noodle and mix noodle well with the sauce.

Scoop in 3 tbs of A, the chicken onto the bowl of noodle. Garnish with fried shallot, fish cake slices, chopped chinese celery.

Kastengel

2006-07-29T14:19:00.000+08:00

Kastengel is a type of Indonesian savoury cookies, popular during festive period. From the name itself, it doesn't sound and look like an Indonesian word. These cookies are apparently brought in by the Dutch, thus are known as this rather weird word. The real recipe calls for Dutch cheese: Edam Cheese.

It's an irony that though Kastengel is very popular in Indonesia, Mum never ever made this. As far as I remember, I had not had these cookies until I was in Sydney, when my flatmate offered me some. My family is not a big fan on cookies and cakes. We have them mostly during Chinese New Year. Our family "must have" are: Lapis Legit, Lapis Surabaya, Nastar and Cashew Cookies and Kastengel never appears in the list.

After that 1st testing, I tried to made Kastengel from the recipe I retrieved from the net. Argh.... it's way too much of work to roll the dough and to shape them into rectangular shape. Luckily, my other lovely flatmate A, helped me out a bit. The taste was fantastic.

Here in Singapore, I made some yesterday. To my surprised, my siblings don't like it a bit!!! Both complained that it tastes so weird, too flour-ie, and "why it's all salty but not sweet?", "what kind of cookies are these?"...the questions go on... So I must say, though my flatmates, my fellow Indonesians love these, but not my siblings... they are just not used to the taste, perhaps cookies for them are supposed to be sweet:) Perhaps the next time I am making Kastengel, I will add some sugar.

This recipe yields 2 medium containers. If you are new to Kastangel, I suggest that you try half of the recipe first to test your tastebud:)

(this is my style of shaping the Kastengel, I just pinched a small amount, and didn't bother to shape them into rectangular shapes:) )

500 g of butter
1/2 tsp salt
700 g of plain flour (more if needed)
2 egg yolks
250 g of Edam Cheese, I used White Cheddar (shredded)

2 egg yolks for brushing

Cream butter with salt until creamy. Add in yolk one by one. Mix flour and cheese. If it's still wet, add a little more flour. Shape into rectangular 8mmx25mmx6mm. Brush with yolk. Bake until it's golden.

Another Banana Cake (Better!!)

2006-07-25T19:57:00.000+08:00

As the previous banana cake was dense though it tasted beautiful, today I made another banana cake with some moderation. The result was perfect, better than the one from the bakery. Perhaps because I added bicarbonate of soda in, the texture was lighter and there was an increase of height of the cake. To add to the texture, I mixed in half a cup of Post Maple Pecan Crunch Whole Grain Cereal. I am going to give Mum this recipe. She will love it.

This is the modified recipe:

300 g of flour
210 g sugar
125 g butter
3 banana (mashed), add in 1 tbs of lemon juice
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
1 tsp of baking soda
1 tsp of baking powder
1 tsp of vanilla powder

Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda and vanilla powder. Keep aside.
Cream butter and sugar until white. Add in mashed banana. Finally stir in flour mix, cereal and choc chips. Time: 1 hr

Fried Wonton

2006-07-22T13:29:00.000+08:00

While I was studying in Sydney, I had 2 Thai flatmates who cook very well. I learnt lots from them, especially O. I remember that she has a friend, B who cooks even better. They cooked us a nice spread of dinner once. One that I would never forget is the Curry Sauce Salmon Fish. It's not the typical curry which comes with soup. This one is slightly dry, with a touch of coconut cream on top. Very spicy and yummy.

Another dish that I learnt from O is the Tom Yum Goong aka Tom Yum Soup. Mind you this is real Tom Yum, made from scracth, no commercial Tom Yum paste. I would elaborate further on this next time when I have the chance to cook this dish.

Having to stay with 2 Thais, I found out they love to make fried wonton. From O, I heard that her mum would make this as little snack in the late afternoon. They would eat the crispy wonton with their favourite brand of Thai Sweet Chilli.

Anyway, enough said, here is my style of fried wonton.

25 pieces of wonton skin120 g of minced pork
5 tbs of chopped chinese celery or chinese parsley is ok too
5 fresh waterchestnut (skinned and chopped roughly)
1 tbs sesame oil
1 tsp pepper
1/2 salt

some mayonaise for dipping

Marinate the minced pork with sesame oil, pepper, salt, chopped chinese celery and waterchestnut. Leave for 15 minutes. Take a small teaspoon of the meat mixture and wrap it with wonton skin. Deep fry with hot oil.

Note: Use only fresh waterchestnut. I used the canned one once as it's hard to find the fresh one in Sydney, it tasted weird. Perhaps you could substitute that with Chinese turnip/yam bean/bengkuang.

Sambal Ikan Teri (Anchovies with Sambal)

2006-07-20T19:32:00.000+08:00

This is another dish I learnt from Mum. Again, I modified a little bit by adding capsicum and kaffir lime leaves.

Everytime my mum comes over, she would make jars of sambal paste to be frozen. This helps to ease my process of cooking sambal dish when she's not around. I don't have to grind shallots, garlic and the chilli everytime I'm cooking chilli dish.

2/3 cup of ikan teri/anchovies, choose the small white type
1 capsicum, cut into bite size
4 tomato, quartered
1 onion, sliced thinly
4 kaffir lime leaves

Sambal:
4 big chilli
4 chilli paddi
5 shallot
3 garlic cloves

Blend all the sambal ingredients and then stir fry with some oil.

With 3 tbs of oil, fry the ikan teri. When they start to turn yellowie, put them aside. Add in onion, stir fried till for 2 minutes. Add in capsicum and kaffir lime leaves. Mix in ikan teri and the sambal paste. Lastly, add in tomato. Add 2/3 cup of water and and cook until tomato is soft.

Fried Chicken Bites with Spicy Sauce

2006-07-19T19:47:00.000+08:00

What's dinner tonight?

I was really impressed by this tiny Asian restaurant somewhere inside a dodgy building at Melbourne Chinatown, it's fully packed when we visited the store one afternoon. Most of the customers were Asians (mostly Taiwanese and HongKongers) and a handful of white collar officers. They offer a wide variety of dishes, mainly rice or noodle dishes. My sis and I were confused by the number of choices, all looks fantastic. After few minutes, the no-nonsense young student waitress came to take order. If I am to open a restaurant tomorrow, I would definitely get them to work for me. They were quick. We were happy that the food came really fast to satisfy our hunger. We had fried squid with salt and spicy sauce, with rice, and braised beef with rice. Both were nicely presented and yes, they tasted way better than the price (bout A$8 each).

So today, I wanted to make something fried, with soy sauce and yes have to be spicy. No squid in the freezer, chicken will do:)

250 gr chicken breast fillet (you can use other part if you like, but i prefer drier meat), cut into bite size

salt

1 tsp of candlenut powder* (optional)

1 tbs pepper

Marinate the chicken with the above ingredients for 1/2 hr.

Add 2 tbs of plain flour, 1 tbs of rice flour, small pinch of baking powder and 1/3 cup cold water. Mix well.

Fry till golden brown. Set aside.

Sauce:

1/4 green capsicum

1 stalk of leek, sliced thinly

4 chilli padi

2 garlic cloves

salt

1 tbs sugar

3 tbs of dark soy sauce

1/2 cup of water

1 tbs of flour+ water for thickening

Stir fry garlic with oil till golden. Add in sliced leek and chilli padi. Follow by soy sauce and water, salt and sugar. Bring to boil. Add flour mixture.

Arrange fried chicken with a plate of plain rice. Spoon the sauce onto the rice and chicken.

I had omelette with prawn and leek too:)

*candlenut/kemiri is often used in Indonesian cuisine. Can be found in Asian groceries. I find powder form is more convenient.

Sweet & Sour Prawns

2006-07-18T22:19:00.000+08:00

Not as you've imagined, this is not the typical Chinese sweet and sour prawn. This is my mum's style, perhaps with some Indonesian influences as well. It is heavily sauced with Indonesian sweet soy sauce and lime to give that tangy sour taste. Mum's style is straightly sweet and sour. Being adventurous, I added chilli, tomato juice with its seeds and worcestershire sauce. My sis agrees that this is a nicer version than Mum's.

So why not try it your self. Get the real Indonesian sweet soy sauce though. Others taste just not there... Once we couldn't get the Indonesian ABC brand in the local supermarket and heavy heartedly bought the Singapore brand. It just tasted funny. Conclusion is that we didn't like it:) The picture below is slightly blurry, arghhhh I need a proper photography lesson...

250 g grey prawn, peel shell and devein

2 tbs worcestershire sauce

3 tbs Indonesian sweet soy sauce

1 tsp pepper

salt

2 garlic cloves, chopped

1/4 onion, sliced

3-4 tbs lime/lemon juice

4 chilli, sliced thinly

tomato seeds and juice from 1 tomato, I used the rest for stir fried KangKung.

sesame seeds (optional)

Marinate prawns with all other ingredients. Mix well. Put aside for 1 hr.

Heat wok with 2-3 tbs of oil. Mum uses double of these, she says with more oil, the prawns are more crunchy. Pour all ingredients in. The sweet soy sauce will caramelise. Getting dry up? It's a sign that it's ready to be served.

Banana Cake

2006-07-18T14:33:00.000+08:00

It has been ages that I want to make banana cake again. My first attempt was when I was still a little girl back in Indonesia. I remembered that the cake came out solid hard rock! The funny thing was that even our greedy German Shepherd didn't like it. He smelled and slowly walked away. Seeing this, my mum laughed out hard. Perhaps, due to that failure, I always wanted to proof that I could make a banana cake which is always said to be one of the easiest cakes to bake.

So today, I woke up a little earlier than usual, put the laundry to wash and ready to bake. The night before I had done my homework by researching through banana cake recipes. I find that most of them are quite similar. Finally I adapted Chubby Hubby's banana muffin recipe (not quite his, his mum to be exact), thinking that since he is now a popular food blogger, I should trust his recipe. Hmmm, but his recipe is in odd mesurement. Cups, and odd 295 g of flour. I couldn't bother to make it 295 g:) He asked for milk, but since I am running out of milk today, I didn't add that making sure that I put more bananas to compensate the moisture content. Same with baking soda, I do not have that, so ignored that too. And again, I don't have my muffin pan with me here, it's left somewhere in Sydney, don't throw it away please... , instead I used the 20cm springform pan. Good thing that my cake turned out delicious!

A little comment though. I half the ingredients as CH mentioned that the recipe is for 24 muffins. I thought that's a lot! Well next time I won't half the ingredients to produce a thicker cake.

300 g flour

2 tbs baking powder

210 g/1 cup sugar

250 g/ 1 stick butter

4 eggs, beaten

4 big bananas, mashed. Add 1 tbs of lemon juice to prevent it to turn dark.

1 tsp vanilla powder

1/2 cup dark chocolate chips (if you have been reading my blog, you know that I'm just trying to finish up my dark chocolate) :)

Shift flour, baking powder and vanilla. Beat butter with sugar until white. Add beated eggs slowly. Mix well. Stir in mashec banana. Combine shifted dry ingredients to the cream. Bake for 1 hr.

Happy trying.

Bak Kut Teh

2006-07-16T20:57:00.000+08:00

Bak Kut Teh (BKT) = Pork Ribs Tea. This soup concoction is believed to be originated from Singapore and Malaysia. It was first created by the Chinese immigrants in the earlier days. The readings that I done show that there are 3 types of BKT, the TeoChew style, the Hokkien style and the Cantonese style. Teochew style comes with peppery clear soup. Hokkien style is slightly darker as more soy sauce is being added. I am not too sure if there is really a Cantonese style as I always heard either TeoChew or Hokkien style. Well today my readings proof me wrong. Apparently, Cantonese BKT is one with strong medicinal taste. BKT is normally served with a bowl of rice and Chinese Breakfast Fried Dough (yiu tiao). Some stores offer some side dishes eg. braised pig trotters, salted vegetables, braised tau gua (fried tofu), and a small pot of Chinese tea.

Anyway, I prefer the TeoChew style. There is one popular store at Balestier Road - Founder Bak Kut Teh. The soup is very peppery. You will never have enough with one bowl. Understanding how good is his soup, the store owner is nice enough to allow "soup refill". One day mum bought a packe of A1 BKT spice from the supermarket. Gosh, it's almost as good as Founder's. What she needs to do is to add extra pepper into the soup. This is becoming our favourite dish. It's one of the easiest "cheating" recipe we have:) I guess making Bak Kut Teh would be really a hassle as there are so many spices to make the perfect concoction.

1 pack of A1 BKT spice
1 tbs of pepper (We love to put more, but I'm afraid it might be too hot for some people:) )
1 kg of pork ribs (cut along the bones)
2 bulbs of garlic
2 lit of water

As Singapore pork does give a distinct "porkie" smell, we always wash the meat thoroughly. Scald the pork twice. This is to ensure that pork is really clean. Chuck all ingredients into a pressure cooker. Cook for 15 minutes. Scoop out the fat if it's too oily. Easy?

Chocolate Covered Marie

2006-07-16T15:35:00.000+08:00

Today is kind of slow. We aren't going out and there isn't any worth watching show on the TV. I was just surfing the net, looking at people's blog, trying to get new inspirations. Well, was really bored until I saw a pack of Marie biscuit left in the kitchen. I bought it for the crust of the cheesecake I made 2 weeks ago. Looking thought my fridge, I found half packed of dark chocolate sitting there untouched for 2 weeks too. Ahha.... one idea came into my head!

Seen those commercial chocolate covered biscuits? Here is the result of my experiment...

This is a simple, 10 minutes project:)

40 gr of dark chocolate

6 marie biscuits

Melt chocolate in the microwave for 1 minute. Spread the melted choc onto one side of the biskuit. Chill for 30 minutes. Tralaaa.... yum!

Cooking or baking, people?

2006-07-14T14:38:00.000+08:00

I would say, I prefer cooking much better than baking. Everytime I bake something new, there is always a thought; will it come out nice? Wuih... I would say, most of the time the bakings were ok, and a sad handful times, they were left untouched after the 1st testing for several days until they ended up in the bin. Perhaps, I over mixed, perhaps, the eggs are not fluffy enough... Perhaps, Perhaps and Perhaps... Baking is too unforgiving.

This is so different from cooking. Out of 20 times, only once or twice that my cookings would be considered as "not that good". Cooking is a flexible journey. You could add more salt, more pepper, more vinegar to suit your taste even at the end of whole processes. Could you add more flour at the end of the baking process, definitely not! I see cooking as a fast adventure, some dishes could be done in less than half an hour.

Baking on the other hand, needs a little more patience than I could offer:) Most of the time is spent waiting for the cake/cookies to be done in the oven. It's not a surprise that I would be standing curiously in front of the oven, trying to peep at the stuff inside. I guess my confidence level for baking is somewhat not up there yet. Perhaps, as time goes, my baking skill will be on par with cooking skill:)

Meatloaf ala Indonesia

2006-07-13T12:16:00.000+08:00

While flipping through Femina (an Indonesian female magazine), I found a meatloaf recipe. This morning, I adapted the basic recipe with coconut powder, sweet soy sauce, pandan leaves and lemon grass added. The pandan leaves give sweet flavour to the meat. Definitely an easy meal to prepare.

500 g of minced beef
1 slice of white bread without the crust, soaked in 50 ml of milk or coconut milk until soft (omit the coconut powder if using coconut milk here)
2 eggs
1 stalk of celery (minced)

3 garlic cloves (minced)
1/2 onion (minced)
1.5 tbs of coconut powder
pepper
salt
a pinch of nutmeg powder
6 tbs sweet soy sauce
2 lemon grass stalk
pandan leaves/banana leaves (optional)

Beat the eggs with coconut powder, sweet soy sauce, nutmeg powder, pepper, salt. Mix into the meat. Add crushed bread. Add garlic, onion and celery. Mix well. Lay pandan leaves/banana leaves on the bottom of heat proof dish. Press in the meat mixture, making sure it's packed. Lay the lemon grass stalks on the top. Again lay the leaves. Steam for 15-20 minutes. Let cool.

Cut into thin slices. Make sure that they are dry before frying. You can pat dry with kitchen towel. Pan fry with some oil. Serve with plain rice.

Cheesecake Madness 2

2006-07-11T00:00:00.000+08:00

@ 10.30 pm

I couldn't wait for the next day to cut and try my cheesecake. So here it is with nice marble pattern. I am happy with my 1st trial:)

11 July @ 11 pm

My bro just ate 2 slices of the cheesecake together with some mango slices! I can't believe he asked for another slice after the 1st serve. He gave me a 9.5/10...:)

Indonesian Spicy Potato Crisp (Kering Kentang)

2006-07-10T21:04:00.000+08:00

I wanted to make a kind of dish that could keep for a week or two so I don't have to cook too often. After some thoughts, I came up with the idea of making Kering Kentang. Hm... I would say it's not worth making, there were too many washing and cleaning to be done. I hate the greasiness on my kitchen floor whenever I deep fry. This was particularly bad as to make Kering Kentang, I had to fry the potatos in batches, the 'ikan teri'--anchovies and not to mention the steps of making the sambal. I'm glad that it turned out nice, otherwise I would be really disappointed after all the efforts:) I don't think I would make this anymore in the future, unless there is someone helping me to do the washing and cleaning.

Ingredients:

2 potatoes julienned the thinner the crispier

1/2 cup ikan teri--anchovies

1/2 cup pre-fried peanuts (get from the supermarket)

Fried the julienned potato batch by batch, followed by anchovies.

Sambal:

6 shallots

4 garlic cloves

some chilli

1 cm of galangga (lengkuas)

1 lemon grass

1.5 tbs of palm sugar

2 tbs of tamarind juice (lime juice is okay too)

1 tbs of sugar

salt to taste

Blender chilli, garlics and shallots. Add 3 spoon of oil and fried the blendered ingredients with galangga and lemon grass. Once it's dry, add palm sugar, sugar and salt. Make sure the sugar has melted and the sambal looks dry, not runny. Add the fried potato crisp, anchovies and peanuts. Mix well. Nice to be eaten with "Nasi Uduk/Nasi Kuning".

Cheesecake Madness

2006-07-10T17:36:00.000+08:00

For the past 2 weeks, I have been trying lots of cheesecakes. I made it a point to have a slice of cheesecake whenever I was in a cafe or a restaurant. Two days ago, I was with A at Marche. Everything else was okay except the cheesecake. What a shame. Having a nice dining concept, Marche is a truely disappointment with a below average cheesecake. It was somehow very floury. Besides, it's not fresh, my fault for not looking at the cake carefully before ordering. I prefer the cheesecake I had at Baker's Inn.

Anyway, as my madness for cheesecake is still going, I just made my very first baked cheesecake. Back in Sydney, I have made non baked cheesecake (chocolate cheesecake) which was pretty easy. Today, after getting some inspirations for Dessertcomesfirst by Jori, I wanted to make her Bull's eye cheesecake. Perhaps, as I am a novice in baking a cheesecake, mine didn't come out as a bull's eye. Knowing it is nowhere bull's eye, I quickly transformed mine into a kind of magic swirl. It looks ok besides the little crack. I wonder how do people make those really flat top cheesecakes. Mine is a little puffy. I can't wait for tomorrow so I can cut and try "Swirly

Cheesecake" :)

Swirly Cheesecake

Ingredients (adapted from dessertcomesfirst.blogspot.com)

14 pieces of Marie
1/2 block for butter (@250g)
1/8 cup sugar

Blend/crush Marie. Add melted butter and sugar. Compact the crush into the base of 8" springform pan. Bake for 15 minutes

2 blocks Philladelphia Cream Cheese/other brand is ok I guess @250g--room temperature
1 can of MilkMaid/Carnation condensed milk
3 eggs
1/4 of lemon-juice only
125 gr of dark chocolate - melted

Beat cream cheese until fluffy. Add in milk until smooth. Add egg one by one and subsequently the lemon juice. Divide the mixture into 2. Add in melted dark chocolate into one part of the mixture.

Spoon in a cup of plain mixture followed by a cup the chocolate mixture. Make sure that you pour into the middle of the pan. Use sharp ends of a fork to get the swirl & yes a little of your creativity will help too:)
Bake at high temperature for 1/2 hr and then at moderate temperature until the cake is jiggly in the middle but set at the perimeter. I still need to work on the temperature.... hopefully my next baked cheesecake will be with a nice smooth top without cracks.

Cakes Temptation

2006-07-05T23:32:00.000+08:00

Today I met up with my college friends for dinner. HJ is posted to Melbourne, so we wouldnt know when we are seeing each other again. Dinner was light as I ordered Wasabi Prawn Salad. It's more of an appetizer than a meal. However I should praise the chef for the smart combination of wasabi and mayonaise. After the meal, we walked up to Bakers Inn somewhere at Fullerton Hotel. We have Mango Mousse, Milk Chocolate Mousse and Straberry Cheesecake. Mango Mousse is my favourite. Very light and fresh, not too sweet. For sure will come back for this cake...

Chinese Rock Melon & Orange Smoothie

2006-07-04T16:33:00.000+08:00

Just after I posted the earlier entry, I was thirsty... the weather is getting hotter these days. Searched the fridge and found 1 orange that aged bout 2 weeks:) and some Chinese Melon that I just bought yesterday. The Chinese Rock Melon is not sweet enought to be eaten by itself tho it looks ripe before I cut it. So, within 10 mins, the refreshing drink was done.. Slurp slurp... ah.....

2 slices of Chinese Rock Melon
1 orange, peel
5 ice cubes
1 scoop of vanila ice cream for garnishing

Blend the 3 items and plunk a scoop of ice cream on the top...

Getting bored...

2006-07-04T15:17:00.000+08:00

I wanted to go to the library today to borrow "Publishing with Blogger". I was too lazy and sleepy to take my sis' library card from her wallet, thinking that I could wake up the next morning just before she leave house. As usual, I overslept and forgot bout the card. Knowing that I do not have any plan today, I want to go the library sooo much today. Especially, the desire to redecorate this blog template was soo great....

At 11.15 am I called my bro to ask if I could meet up with him to borrow the card at his lunch hour (his office is closer to home than sis'). He said okay. Quickly got ready and alas, I just found out that I just on my washing mashine and it would be done in 2 hours. If I was to go to the library, I would like to browse tro lots of cooking magazines and maybe some blog related books. That would take up more than 2 hours. By the time I reach home, clothes would have been in the washing machine for too long, and fraid they would be smelly if I don;t dry it immediately. So, heavy-heartedly I had to cancel my plan to the library. I am still thinking, perhaps, I should meet up with my sis after she finishes work. We could meet at Toa Payoh and go to the T.P Library. Argh... let's see....

I recieved 2 parcels from the very special people in my life. One is from Mr C and the other is from my gd friend, Miss Jangcric. Mr C bought me a few pieces of Bijoux jewellery which I personally think are tooo expesive. I mean I love some of them (not all, sorry :)), but I won't spend AUS400 on those jewellery. Ehm, Mr C's taste is a little weird this time. The parcel is nicely packed, each piece was wrapped in a nice white box, tied with purplish ribbon. 2 of the necklaces are made of big semi precious stones. Very big. I haven't worn such a big jewellery before. However, I would wear them:) I wore the pink stoned necklace with the matching colour silver earrings when I met up with my college friends yesterday. One commended that they are nice:)

Jangcric on the other hand sent me a lipstick red knit top and a box of Korean VCDs--Beautiful Days. I love her! She always knows what I would love. I have been telling her to watch this VCD ages ago until her sis from Singapore brought it over to her in LA. Due to my love to this serial, I want to get it so I could keep it. To bad, I couldnt find it anywhere, Jangcric knows bout this. And it's really nice of her to send me hers! So touched....

So these few days, I am would have the VCDs to entertain me... perhaps with some chips as well...:)

Korean Frenzy

2006-06-28T17:27:00.000+08:00

The food scene here is very different from Sydney. There is a lack of authenticity here. Perhaps because there are lots of migrants of many different countries in Australia, particularly in Sydney, the taste of the international cuisine is somehow very real. In the middle of Sydney, Korean, Japanese, Thai and HK restaurants are easily found. Here in Singapore, even at the well known Orchard Road, hardly, you can find a decent Korean restaurant.

So here in Singapore I have to look for Korean grocers (Thank God I found 1 at Cineleissure).Bought the chilli flakes at $13+ for a 200 g pack. Ouchhhh... too expensive for chilli flakes... but the desire to cook the Hot soup was too great to stop me from buying:)

Ok so here is the recipe for

Korean Prawn and Hot Dog Spicy Soup

8 grey prawns

4-5 Hot Dog

raddish cut lenghwise 8 cm

bean sprout

spring onion, cut lengthwise 8 cm

3 chilli

1 tbs of Korean chilli flakes

sesame seed

Tang Oh (Garland Chrysanthemum) a kind of green leaf vegetables

1/2 onion, sliced

1 clove of garlic (minced)

salt, little bit of sugar

Bring 1.5 bowl of water to boil, add raddish as it needs few minutes to be soft, chilli flakes, onion, and garlic. Add hot dog, prawn, and spring onion. Finally bean sprout and tang oh. Sprinkle some sesame seeds on your rice and into the soup...

Nice to be eaten with bulgogi or fried tempura.... will update that soon.

Creating Your Own Flavours...

2006-06-28T15:16:00.000+08:00

I always love Green Tea flavoured ice cream, beverages, and even cake. Was inspired to make my own when I was still in Sydney. I rushed down to the Korean shop, just opposite my apartment to look for "maccha"- high quality green tea powder. Got it, tho quite pricey for a student on budget:). And of course I have to get the main ingredient, the cheating ingredient-- The Vanilla Ice Cream;). So I crossed over to World Square to the the Coles Vanilla Ice Cream.

Green Tea Ice Cream

Basically, this ice cream is very easy:) Just let the ice cream to sit in room temperature, depending on the weather, it takes forever in winter. If it's winter, bring the tub into your sink filled with warm water. However make sure it's still creamy, not watery!

Scoop 4 spoon full of melten ice cream into a bowl, and mix 2 teaspoons of maccha into it. Make sure they r well mixed. Now, transfer this mixture to your ice cream tub. Mix with the rest of the ice cream. Fridge it. After 45 minutes, take out the tub again and stir the ice cream well. Repeat 4 times. This is to ensure that the texture of the ice cream is smooth and not crystallized.

With maccha, I made "Green Tea Cappuchino" just like the one in IchibanBoshi Australia. Many was tricked by the name of the cold beverage. With 'cappuchinno tagged on the name of the beverage, it's understandble that many thought it's a coffee based one. Well NO, it's actually green tea milk drink, shaked, hence lots of froth resulted. The restaurant serves it cold with a tall glass with some brown sugar sprinkle. It comes with a small pot of syrup for you to satisfy your taste bud. I just mix maccha, milk and ice.Shake shake shake. Hoooolaaa, my own Maccha Cappuchino:)

I have used this method to make Durian Ice Cream here in Singapore. It's nicer than than those sold in the supermarket, with real durian pieces in your ice cream! My bro gave me a 10/10 score, not knowing that I didn't make it from scratch. But who cares... as long as it's nice.

This week, if I can find cheap manggo, I will make Mango Ice Cream. Mango is too expensive to be smashed, I prefer to eat good grade mangos fresh.

Mango Salad

2006-06-27T16:12:00.000+08:00

I never liked Thai Salad, as the fish sauce is too overwhelming for me until a fren of mine from Sydney forced me to try it. To my surprised, it tastes beautiful! I love the finely shredded raw mango with the combination of coriander. The sauce is slightly sour with a hint of sweetness in it.

The ingredients seem to be readily available from the supermarket, so here I am with my new

recipe:

1 raw manggo (finely shredded)
1/2 carrot (finely shredded)
1 cucumber (trim the seeds, shredded)
1/8 onion, chopped
corriander ( roughly chopped)
1/2 cup of fried peanut ( chopped)
lime grind (grated)

Sauce:

2 tbs of fish sauce
2-3 lime
1 tbs honey
1/2 tbs sugar

Mix all, making sure that the sugar has diluted

Arrange the grated manggo and vegies. Sprinkle the chopped peanuts. Spoon in the sauce.
Easy and fresh salad.

Personalised theme

2006-06-27T16:00:00.000+08:00

I tried to create my own personalise theme for this blog the entire day. Trying to be IT language smart, I changed those pictures URL under the template index. The header came out, but it's out of place! I guess I shld hold up my ambition to creat my very personalised one, unless Mr C is kind enough to help:)

I wonder how those people could have a nice layout on their blog, especially those homemaker food bloggers. Any tips anyone? I tried out blogsome yesterday, but it's harder for a beginner like me. The setting is a little confusing and also, it seems that it loads slower than blogspot. Hm, ok my complaints won't stop, I still not satisfied with the appearance of my blog. I want a classy white with some contrasting colours on the layout.

Anyway, blogging has caused severe back and neck pains to me. As I wrote before, I am always very enthu for starting everything, let it be cooking, trying something new, patchworks, beading, etc. Hm... looking back, I managed to get some projects done on those categories, but they always end. Now the passion for patchworking and beading is no more burning:)

Hope blogging will be burning hot for a longer period...

Tiramisu

2006-06-27T10:37:00.000+08:00

Walking along the dairy product section of Coles, I was attracted to the discounted Philadelphia Cream Cheese. Was even more amazed when it provides free recipes at the back of the box. Tiramisu, Strawberry Semifreddo Cheesecake and Classic Baked Lemon Cheesecake were some of the examples of those free recipes. I went home without getting it, and soon after I found myself seaching for easy Tiramisu recipes from the net. I found many. So with basic recipe, I went back to Coles the following day to buy the ingredients. From then on, Tiramisu is one of my favourite cake to make if there is any pot luck. After experimenting with a number of recipes, I came up with a new modified version from all the recipes i have gathered.

Ingredients:

250g of ladyfingers
4-5 teaspoon of instant coffee (lots of true blue Tiramisu lovers say it’s best to use real esspresso but I find instant coffee perfect for this)
1/2 cup warm water
1/2 cup Kahluah/Bayleys

250g Philly Cream Cheese
2 eggs separated
1/2 cup thickened cream
1/2 cup caster sugar

What you need to do...

Mix coffee, water and Liquor in a shallow bowl.
Beat egg whites until soft peaks formed. Beat thickened cream. Beat Philly Cheese until soft and add in egg yolks and sugar until the mixture is smooth. Add cream and fold in egg whites into the mixture.

Dip the lady fingers quickly into the coffee mixture. Too much coffee mixture results in soggy tiramisu. So make sure that you do it really quick. Some may want to brush the mixture over the lady fingers. Lay the ladyfingers in a serving dish. Spread half of the cream mixture on the top. Repeat dipping ladyfingers into the coffee liquid one at a time and laying them on the dish. Finally spoon the remaining cream mixture onto the dish. Sprinkel with cocoa powder.

Happy trying… it might be hard to find some of the items here for example right here in Singapore, it is hard to find ladyfingers in normal supermarkets, only the big and those in town will have it. You can substitute ladyfingers with sponge cake. Just slice them up around 8x2x2cm and toast them until they turn brownish.

Beautiful Sydney...

2006-06-27T09:11:00.000+08:00

I had a wonderful trip with my sister to Sydney for 2 weeks recently. The main purpose for this trip was for my graduation ceremony but the primary personal reasons for me to go there were slightly different. It's a valid exucuse to see my bf C, friends and yes to eat! I miss the food there. I should say that as there are many migrants from different countries in Sydney, the food is more authentic. Thai chefs cook Pad Kapraw and Pad See Ew, Korean chefs cook Altang and bulgogi, Italian chef cook pasta, Hk chefs cook pork chop with tomato rice etc...
We were lucky to get a room at Astoria Tower in the middle of the city (thx C).

Paid $280 a room for a week, this was one of the reason that we could shop more:) The place is just a few roads, and blocks away from C's place (which was my room b4 I left Sydney, C took over my room). We dragged ourself to C's place after our shopping/sightseeing, normally after he came back from work. We need his computer to load pictures and to check emails.

This trip was too short, I wish I could stay a week longer. On the second week, we headed south to Melbourne. We were too happy to stay at a posh serviced apartment in the middle of the city. You wouldn't believe the price that we paid for. It's only the 25% of the regular room rate! Well, again thx to C's friend! Personally, I prefer Sydney than Melb. The city is messy with the trams running around. Pavements are v.v. small and you have to wait for the traffic light to go green with lots of pple squeeshing into you. However, Architecural n the royal botanical garden are better than Sydney's.

Brought sis to Hurricane for its gigantic pork ribs. It's beautifully done. Smeared with bbq sauce and not too honeyed flavour, just perfect for a hungry lunch. We orderd 2 full racks, and C finished a full rack by himself! Gosh... Do not fraid... after this meal, we walked along the coast of bondi, up to Tamarama beach. I was cold and windy that afternoon, we were shuddering but the views were too nice to be missed. While walking down back to Bondi, there was a group of seagulls flying across us. If you were fast enough, you could catch one of them while they were in motion. My sis snapped a nice picture of C and I together. We're amazed as the picture came out really nice and natural. So each of us take turn to wait for the seagulls to fly over again... it's never as nice as a snapshot. But we managed to took some nice ones....

Spending more than 4 years there, I miss the food very much. My favourite is Spice I am, located at Surry Hills. We love the Crispy Pork Belly with Basil. the pork belly is crunchy and spicy... a very nice combination of herbs makes this dish A MUST TRY*** Another Thai Rest that we love is Thainatown. This rest offers affordable dishes. Most of the customers are thai/international students and a handful of locals.

Kingsford is a nice neighbourhood for Indonesian food. This suburb is where the UNSW is located. Many Indonesians and HK rest here. One that I like is Ayam Goreng 99. We normally order the Ayam Bakar---bbq chicken, sayur asem, amla goreng. Many times, we dined in at the other Indo rest in Kingsford, but most of the time we were disappointed by the food. Often, we wished we had visited Ayam Goreng 99 instead. At least our tummy is satisfied:)

We had many Korean food there too. Korean Rest. are easily found in the city. We love Altang the spicy fish roe soup and the bulgogi.

Here is the list for Sydney favourite food:

Spice I am--Thai rest. At Surry Hills, walking distance fr the city, very close to the Central Station.Best dish: Crispy Pork Belly with Basil. fish curry is nice too. Slightly more expensive, but listen, it's worth trying! ($$$)
Thainatown.Close to World Sq. Affordable meals. Best Pad Kapraw. Love the thai ice milk tea too.($)
Ayam Goreng 99--Kingsford, Anzac Parade. BBQ chicken, sayur asem, ampla goreng. Lots of students, q can be long ($)
Min Sook Hoon, Liverpool st, opp. World Tower, V Bar. Affordable Korean Rest. Love the Altang, but not the best in the city.($+)
Hanabi--Liverpool St, After Pitt St if you are walking from George St. The Restaurant is located slightly under ground. Best Altang! ($$)
Seoul Ria --Liverpool St too:) Opp World Sq, closer to chinatown area. At level 2 of one building at the junction. Must have: Sweet and Spicy Chicken. The chicken is crispy just perfect with the sweet and tingy sauce. Hot pot is good too. ($$+)
Hurricane--Bondi. Best Ribs in Sydney. The ribs are gigantic! worth trying! However, walk along the beach after meal to burn off those fat...:)($$$)
Pancakes at the Rocks--- Best Chicken Caesar Salad. Gals love this dish. Many of my girlfrend order this instead of the pancakes.($$)
Fish Market---Fresh and cheap sashimi and seafood! ($$+)
Chu Dumpling King--Burlington Sq. Somewhere in between Market City and UTS library. Tho the restaurant is called dumpling King, but we never ordered the Dumplings. We love the chicken cutlet/pork cutlet with rice. The ice green tea is a nice companion with this dish with just another extra dollar. They have many tiny cold dished too. Chilly anchovy and Pig ears are the must to accompany the meal. ($+)
Should I add Superbowl.Chinatown, they have 2 branches at Chinatown. Service is Horrible. But for the sake of the Fujian Fried Rice... and they owned the HK cafe next door (Y2K). So you can order the chilli fish ball and bubble tea too. These 2 are nice during cold winter nite.

Well I am drooling now... Hope I will go back to Sydney soon....

For The First Time

2006-06-26T23:11:00.000+08:00

I am getting bored these days. I still miss Sydney’s life as I have more good friends there. I miss Miss Rowe who always comes up to my place unplanned. Maybe she just needs to go to the bank, perhaps she needs to grap some papers fr erskesley (after 4 yrs of frequent visits to that shop, I still can spell the word). I miss the vibrant life there. Over here in Singapore, all frens are working, and they have little time for hangin out. So it’s no longer like Sydney, where everyone is still enjoying life after our uni life ended. I guess, I have to get used to this. I miss the time when I was a city gal. Everything is within reach. Friends would stop by at your place whenever they’re in the city just to say hi, or perhaps they are waiting for their train to come. How I miss my little room, equipped with a waist height fridge:)

Due to this boredom, I’ve been searching for recipe. I was inspired by Pennylane’s blog. The pictures of the cakes are beautifully taken. So, here I am … starting a new blog.