Salmon + pasta

If you want a dish that is quick and easy yet yummy, this is one. Grilled salmon + pasta + some greenish stuff, in this case it was rockets. While grilling salmon (coated with a bit of olive oil + salt + black pepper) just pop red chillies as well. They are not as hot when grilled. Pasta was tossed with a bit of olive oil + salt + pepper + whatever else you are in the mood for :)

Rainbow Buttercake

This is another of Mamafami's recipes that works. It is not as complicated as it looks, and tastes superb. Highly recommended if you are in the mood to bake and eat. In our case, didn't even wait for the cake to be lifted up from the baking pan onto the cooling rack. It was simply take out from oven, cut and eat!

250g butter
200g sugar
5 eggs
210g flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1/2 teaspoon rose essence
food colouring : pink, yellow, green, blue

Method :

1. Sift flour and baing powder, trice. Set aside.
2. Cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy.
3. Add in eggs, one at a time and mix evenly.
4. Add vanilla essence + rose essence

5. Cream batter till smooth and light.
5. Fold in the flour.
6. Scoop a small portion of the batter into 4 separate bowls.
7. Add in a bit of food colouring into each bowls. Fold in to mix it evenly.
8. Scoop 2 tablespoons of yellow colour onto the center of the baking tin.
9. Top it with 2 tablespoons of pink colour onto the center of the yellow batter.
10. Do the same with the green and blue colour and repeat the process till all the batter are used.
11. Bake in a preheated oven at 180 C for 45 to 50 minutes.

Banana loaf

Long CNY break - excellent time to try out a new recipe. Did this banana loaf using the recipe from Amy Beh's column in the STAR. Easy to do and yummy to eat. I loved the almonds especially. The recipe was tripled to get 2 loaves of this size, with baking time taking almost an hour.

Recipe for mini loaves:

50 g butter

60 g canola / sunflower oil

105 g soft brown sugar

2 eggs

½ teaspoon vanilla essence

150 g banana, mashed (3 – 4)

20 g ground almonds

200 g superfine flour

¾ tsp baing powder

¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda

30 g sultanans

2 tbsp milk

1. preheat oven 170 degrees celceus
2. beat butter + oil + sugar + essence until creamy
3. add eggs one at a time, beat well after each addition
4. mix in mashed banbas + ground almonds + sultanas
5. sift in flour, baking powder and bicarbonate to combine; add in milk but do not overmix
6. spoon mixture into loave pans until ¾ fulls.
7. garnish with almond flakes
8. bake 20 – 25 mins

End of year Makan

We had a family makan-makan the day after Xmas to celebrate end of the year. Made Middle Eastern dishes. First time tried these recipes ... they worked out very well! Will post recipe soon.

Bubur kacang merah

A discussion on our egroup yesterday had mentioned bubur kacang hijau. It reminded me that there is a packet of kacang merah (kidney beans) in the kitchen. Having never ever cooked this before, it was a good excuse to look up a recipe. Found this in a nyonya cookbook, and was easy to make (less than 5 ingredients!).

1. Soak packetful of kidney beans for around 2 - 3 hours (funnily enough, the skin were all wrinkled up).

2. Boil water in a pot, with daun pandan.

3. Add beans + thinly sliced orange peel (from 2 dried peels).

4. Simmer till soft.

5. Add gula batu (to taste).

6. Stir intermitently to avoid being sticky.

I had to add bit more water in the process, for it became too sweet while it was simmering. Lovely to eat while hot!

Spaghetti tomyam

Was in the mood for something soupy and spicy, so came up with spaghetti tomyam. Daun limau purut and cili padi were from our garden! Avoided shrimps to save me the agony of hidung gatal.

1. Tumis 2 ulas bawang. Masukkan daging (or ayam or whatever).

2. Tambah air, biarkan mendidih.

3. Tambah serai (dititik), bawang (potong labu), daun limau purut.

4. Tambah cili padi, perasa tom yam, sedikit air limau nipis.

5. Tambah sayur-sayuran.

6. Perisa dengan garam.

7. Serve as lauk or in this case, with spaghetti.

*I know some people add fish sauce. Unfortunately, dah habis di dapur.

Onde-onde

I had initially planned to make this for Iftar in Ramadhan ... never got round to doing it till now ie almost 3rd week of Syawal. Pathetic. Still, it's here, and it was delightful eating onde-onde made purely with daun pandan extract rather than green colouring.

Onde-onde

1. Mix 1/2 packet tepung pulut with air daun pandan (one recipe called for 240 gm tepung and 180 mls liquid). I simply cut up several daun pandan leaves and blended it up with bit of water. Mix till get 'dough kental'.

2. Prepare kelapa - grated coconut with pinch of salt.

3. Prepare sugar - lecek gula melaka.

4. Roll into ball-shape, make small indentation, put gula melaka, drop into boiling water.

5. Once it's cooked, it will float up. Take out from pot, strain and mix into grated coconut.

6. Serve and pop into mouth :)

Shepherd's Pie

Adventurous mood continues ... today tried Shepherd's pie. Dina helped to cook ... pre-UPSR stress buster! Happy to report that this recipe works :)

1. Peel, wash and boil potatoes in pot (I only had 5 biji) of salted water. When done, mash with butter (recipe called for 4 tablespoons ie half the block, but I used less). Season with salt + pepper.

2. Saute 1 chopped onion in 4 tablespoons butter. Add carrots/mix veggie. Then add minced beef (I used the one packet I had in the freezer).

3. Add 1 teaspoon Worchester sauce; then 1/2 cup beef stock.

4. Season with salt and pepper.

5. Simmer until liquid dries up a bit.

Place beef mixture into pan, layer with mashed potato. 'touch up' the surface with a fork.

Bake in broiler 200 degrees for 30 minutes ie api atas.

Nasi lemak kukus

Yesterday I was a bit adventurous in the kitchen and decided to try nasi lemak kukus. It certainly took a bit more effort, but it was worth it because the final product was much nicer ... lagi lerai. Worth a try!

nasi lemak kukus

1. clean beras and soak in santan cair for at least 2 hours. Santan should cover the rice grains.

2. prepare steamer by boiling water with 3 pieces of daun pandan.

3. Steam rice grains till 1/2 cooked (about 10 minutes).

4. in the meantime, saute bawang merah + 2 b putih + 1/2 inci halia + kulit kayu manis.

5. When done, mix onion mix with santan pekat + salt.

6. Pour 1/2 cooked rice into santan pekat. Mix well and allow to soak for 10 minutes.

7. Return to steamer till cooked.

pasta

Had some leftover roast chicken from dinner last night. That became lunch. Very easy to do.

1. Cook pasta as per instructions.

2. Warm some olive oil, saute few cloves of chopped garlic, add chicken meat, tomatoes, chopped green stuff (we had daun sup in the fridge).

3. Toss pasta in above mixture.

4. season with salt & pepper.

Eat while hot.

Baked bananas

I had an empty shelf in the oven while baking the chicken pies, so decided to bake some bananas that was just lying around in the kitchen. After 40 minutes this was what happened. Sliced the banana, drizzled honey on it and oh it was so good!

chicken pie

If I recall correctly I've posted the recipe for chicken pie many months ago. This time I've tripled the recipe for the pastry and got enough to bake 2 trayfuls! Plus I've got new pastry cutters that was rather delightful to use.

Lompat Tikam

One of my favourite local desserts. Various steps are involved in the preparation but it's worth it.
1. Pulut - soak few hours in water, add red colouring + few pieces of asam keping. When red enough, strain, steam few minutes till done.
2. About 300 gram tepung beras, add water + air daun pandan (+green colouring if so desired) + bit of kapur (I used sodium bicarb) and mix till betul2 cair. Heat over slow fire. Keep stirring and stirring and stirring till thick. This takes quite a while and is good upper arm exercise!
3. Take santan pekat, heat with about 1 tablespoon of tepung beras.
4. Make air gula - brown sugar + water + daun pandan.
5. to eat, mix all.

Baked sweet potato

If you are baking something in the oven, can chuck in sweet potatoes as well. Scrub the sweet potato, pierce to let out steam, place on baking pan, bake 180 degrees for one hour. Almost effortless. We ate it with grated coconuts (with bit of salt and sugar sprinkled on).

Chicken for chicken rice

Tried a new recipe for chicken rice. THis one required chicken to be steamed, then grilled. Recipe a bit complicated so will post later. But I love how it looks! Tak sempat garnish fully as it was too near iftar :)

Biskut raya

Decided to do this on Sunday evening. Pretty easy:

250 gm tepung
125 gm ghee
125 gm sugar

mix all, divide into 3, colour each one with red, green, yellow.
Make little balls with each colour. Take 3 different coloured little balls and join together, roll.
Bake in preheated oven 150 ish for 15 mins ish.
Cool.
sprinkle with icing sugar if desired.

Ajue's macaroni soup

This is another good one, courtesy of Ajue. It's almost 5 ingredients or less so fits my criteria of 'fast and easy'. Prepared within 30 minutes.

1. Garlic 3 - 4 cloves

2. Sliced beef

3. Chicken stock cubes

4. Mushrooms

5. Oyster sauce (about 5 - 6 tablespoons)

6. Salt to taste

1. Saute garlic, add in beef and allow to cook.

2. Add water + stock cube

3. Add mushroom; allow to boil

4. Thicken soup with cornflour; season to taste.

5. Slowly spoon in egg whites while stirring (for a 'stringy' effect)

6. Serve with macaroni; include condiments ie cut chillies, spring onion, fried shallots.

Egg banjo for iftar :)

1. Prepare burger buns - spread butter/margarine, grill. Spread mayonnaise.

2. Prepare eggs - i used the round egg ring for this.

3. Prepare fillings i.e. sliced lettuce, onions whatever you want

4. Place cooked eggs in bun, top with fillings, spread with tomato/chilly sauce.

Yumm.

Ajue's Dadih

Ramadhan 2010 brings on a new 'element' to our tkc8084 egroup network ... we are sharing recipes! It's much nicer to try new recipes when you know that it's tried and tested in someone else's kitchen. I had ample agar-agar in my pantry, so Ajue gave this recipe. Extremely easy to do (took only 1/2 hour to prepare including cleaning up) and fits my bill of 5 ingredients or less. I much prefer the chocolate to the other.

1 liter susu kotak strawberry or choc
2 liter air
1 cawan gula (adjust according to preference)
10 gm agar-agar paket or 1/2 packet strip ones (1 packet of 20-ish gm agar2; they come in two sizes i think)

1. Bring to boil air, agar2 and sugar.
2 Tutup api, stir in milk.
3. Strain into little containers.
4. Refrigerate.

Rich chocolate marble cake

This is an amazing cake which was surprisingly easy to make, especially when I used the cake mixer. Got it from (where else!) mamafami fotopages (source Sheila Mambo). My marbling effect didn't really turn out, but the good thing about that was that the choc bits were more in the middle :) I didn't have dark chocolates in the fridge, so used normal chocolates instead. I can only imagine how superb it will be with the dark version! Next baking session.

Recipe:

Preheat oven 170 degrees.

Melt 125 g dark chocolates. Cream together 125 g butter + 125 g sugar. Get 2 eggs, beat a little, add to mixture little at a time. Add 1 teaspoon vanilla essense. Add alternatingly 155 g self-raising flour with 80 mls fresh milk.

Divide cake mix into 2; mix 1 with the melted choc. Grease small pan (I used an 8 inch round cake pan for a doubled mixture). Add 2 tablespoon plain mixture to centre of pan, top with 2 tablespoons choc mixture. Continue until cake mix is finished. Bake 45 minutes or till done. Allow to cool. Eat. Scrumptious.