Rice Wine Chicken & Sambal ikan bilis

These 2 recipes may sound odd to be put together but rest assured, they're a dish of its own and....I cooked both tonight without the rice. What's more, we didn't actually have them for dinner while the portion was fit for 4 - 5 pax. Yea..talk about peculiarity.

Mom has left some chicken fillet and ginger in my fridge and if I don't cook it soooner before she comes over next week, my ears may just suffer a little nagging (again)  :) There's this rice wine my mom in law made and when you put all of these ingredients together, you'll get Rice Wine Chicken.

Ingredients for Rice Wine Chicken
Chopped garlic
Shreded ginger (lots)
Chicken meat
Fungus (shred preferred)
Rice Wine (homemade)
Rock sugar cane (tiny lump)
A pinch of salt

Hubby was on a strict diet but he couldn't help peeking into my pot and served himself a small bowl eventhough he had earlier swore that he ain't gonna eat.

Now...I've got another problem. I've got the following ingredients in my fridge :

• Kaffir lime leaves
• 2 stalk of lemongrass
• Chilli boh
• Tamarind
• Lots of peeled onions (bought in the market a week ago)
• 2 big onions

So again, with all of the above ingredients + a packet of ikan bilis which I bought during my last trip to Kuantan, I've decided to cook Sambal Ikan Bilis.....at 10.05pm. Yes.... that's exactly what I did. I reckon I've been a little over ambitious with the tamarind juice, hence a tad too sour. I normally don't use lemongrass or kaffir lime leave when I cook sambal ikan bilis but I gotta get rid of these 2 ingredients otherwise they're gonna end up in the land of dustbin.

The pictures not perfect but oh man.. I'm don't wanna climb up to get his camera.

So, the next question is.....whose gonna eat the Rice Wine Chicken and Sambal Ikan Bilis I just cook at this ungodly hour? My colleagues of course... that'll be my lunch tomorrow and part of their lunch too. 

Fluffly Hokkaido Cupcakes

Folks, I 'm sorry for delaying this post for more than 2 weeks as I was busy with work and attending the company's team building in Redang.  SL found the recipe, tested it at home, brought the cupcakes to office for us to try and I went totally ga ga over it. It was so soft and so fluffy that it felt like melting into my mouth. Yea... I went overboard with the cream but who doesn't love chocolate cream? I didn't want to make a flower shape but that's the only nozzle I have at that time.

I'm so gonna bake this again ... probably next week .... when I find time.

To view the recipe, please click here.

Red Bean Buns

 

 

It was a nice breezy cooling Friday morning but my mood was anything but that. I worked through all morning, diligently clearing my emails and paperwork , my fingers working furiously on the keyboard. By almost lunch time, I felt that I could breathe a little and decided to get the bread machine to work for me instead.

 

Using the same recipe as Walnut Cocoa Raisins buns,  I omitted the cocoa powder and the walnuts & raisins. I made the dough as plain as possible so that I could have red bean filling in the centre later on. The machine knead the dough for 30 mins and thereafter, I removed it from the pan, knock the air out from the dough, divide into 16 - 18 pieces to be rolled into a ball. Of course, I added in my read bean in the centre of the bun.

 

 

 

By 1.15pm, it was done and I let it proof for another hour or so to let it double its size. By 3pm, the buns were freshly baked in the oven and we all had a little mini party in office. Afterall, it was a quiet day for us as there were only 5 of us in the office + 1 student intern. They happily gobbled my buns and all of them packed some back too. Well...if only I have more people at home, I wouldn't be giving away things I baked and made all the time.

 

 

 

What have I achieve at the end of Friday? Well, my spirits lifted up by noon, I successfully baked the buns while I was  working at my desk and all of us were eating happily and chatted over coffee (for a while only!!) during the tea break. As we savoured the deliciously soft hot buns, I can't help wondering when exactly is the company gonna VSS me so that I can grab the compensation and then......stay at home to bake and read (oh..and fb) :D

 

 

 

 

White Chocolate Gateau

 

It's another recipe which I learnt from Tomoko of Caramel Factory, a nice cozy little place where she conducts her class. The cake texture is soft and moist. Everyone who had had a taste of this cake thought it was a cheesecake. It looked like cheesecake and it tasted like one BUT it ain't one. This recipe is pretty simple. The success of this cake depends on how much you beat the egg whites. The recipe (like many others ie chiffon, soufflé etc) says : beat the egg whites to stiff perks. Now, that's the tricky part. How stiff is considered stiff? I've always got a problem with beating the egg whites because it is just way too easy to overbeat it which will result in lumpy texture when mix with the cake  batter. I'm still trying to learn and determine at which stage should I stop beating the egg white to refrain the protein from breaking down and I guess this will come naturally with more practice. 

 

We each baked our own cake from scratch. It is best to eat it chilled, on the following day. It was a good thing that I had that piece of white chocolate with the words Happy Birthday on it as a decoration.  I can't wait to another another class from Tomoko. Once again, I'm sorry that this recipe cannot be shared here as she is doing it for commercial. In case you're interested in her classes, check out her class schedule by clicking here.

 

 

 



Focaccia bread

 

 

Kuali from The Star has collaborated with MIB (Malaysian Institute of Baking) for the past 2 years in which various baking classes has been held. Due to overwhelming responses, participants can only register for the baking class on a specific day at a specific given time. I wasn't very lucky in getting myself registered but I got lucky last week. I managed to get a place for the Saturday morning class which also happens to be the last baking class for year 2013. The remaining classes for year 2013 will be cooking class instead.

 

 

 

I'm not a great fan of focaccia bread as I'm more towards a sweet bread person. However this class will be teaching 2 other recipes and I thought to myself, why the hell not! I enjoyed the class tremendously. Don Yong himself, the founder of MIB, conducted the class. We spent first an hour or so on introduction and theory. The theoretical knowledge in baking is what I currently lack but of course, the next thing I lack is patience.

 

 

 

I find that bread baking is a splendid way to nurture one's patience. I still have a long road ahead to learn on this. This is the 1st time I made bread using a mixer instead of a bread machine or kneading  with my own hands. He taught us using the 'sponge' method, which is something pretty new to me. Bread came out looking great and tasted great as well. But like I said, I'm not much of a fan for savory bread so... I guess I won't be making this bread very often in the later days.

 

 

 

A friend of mine knew I was going for the class and asked the share the recipe. Well.. here it is..

Ingredients for sponge :

Bread flour  420g

Instant Yeast  4g

Cold Water  244g

Ingredients for dough :

Bread flour  180g

Instant dry yeast  6g

Malt Flour  24g

Oregano  4g

Rosemary  2g

Black pepper  2g

Salt  9g

Bread Improver (optional)  9g

Cold water  132g

Oven dried tomatoes  60g

Olive oil  48g

 

 

Method:

1. Prepare the sponge and ferment for 3 hours at room temperature, which is about 27C.
2. In an electric mixer, using a dough hook at slow speed, blend all the dry ingredients together for 1 minute.
3. Add water, dried tomatoes and sponge on slow speed for 2 minutes. Mix on medium speed for 5 minutes and add olive oil. Mix for another 10- minutes on medium speed until dough is fully developed.
4. Place dough on floured bench and cover with a plastic sheet for 10 minutes. Divide dough into 6 pieces, each 190g.
5. Roll out the dough to 6mm thick and place in a tray.
6. Proof dough for 30 minutes and make shallo9w indentations all over dough with your fingertips, then brush with olive oil, letting it pool in indentations.
7. Bake for 10 - 15 minutes at 220C. Once baked, brush with olive oil.

 

 

 

Sausage galore !!

 

 

It's a cool lazy Saturday evening and I'd like to have a simple dinner at home. Afterall, I have zero idea what to eat out. Sausages and salad should be a rather quick fix for dinner. I took out my Happycall pan lookalike which I bought from Amway six months ago. The pan finally made its first "debut" to my old stove.



 

 

 

See the oil splattered all over the top of the pan? Well well well... it sure saved me the trouble of wiping the walls and mopping the floor. Besides, it was kinda fun turning the pan every now and then. My 3 variants of sausages : chorizo, Italian sausage and wine sausage were cooked to perfection and all done in less than 15 mins. I've steamed a sweet potato to replace corn on cob. Fresh vegetables are inevitable if one is having sausages.

 

Diner's done and now dishes are in the sink, waiting to be washed.... by someone. Who do you think it would be, huh??

Tofu, Jam & Tahini Salad Dressing

 

We went back to GK Organic Farm today for another tour and another delectable organic lunch. It was so yummy that I had a 2nd big helping of the salad and  sweet potatoes. The chef there shared his own creation of salad dressing during my last trip there and I wanna make it for mom to try it out. So here's the ingredients to make the dressing:

These are the ingredients. Too lazy to run up to get the camera so the hp's quality will do.

 

1 packet of soft tofu

Tahini (1 put in 1 big tbsp)

Lemon Juice (freshly squeeze or bottled)

Organic Pineapple jam (or any other organic jam)

A little olive oil.

A little water

Honey

 

The finished dressing : tofu + pineapple jam + roselle + honey + tahini + lemon juice

 

I threw in everything in my food processor except the olive oil in which I added in upon serving of the salad. The measurement were deliberately left out because you can whip up your own dressing according to your preference. For me, I like it sweeter with a hint of citrus. Therefore, I was generous with the amount of lemon juice as well as honey and pineapple jam. Since I bought roselle this morning, I added some of the roselle into the blending as well. Yup... it became my own salad creation  :D  It would be fab to add in some fruit slices but since I had none, I replaced it with roselle and jumbo raisins. Mom wasn't too ecstatic over the dressing. Dad has no comment while hubby prefer caesar and thousand island over my dressing. It seems like I was the only one enjoying this healthy bit of homemade dressing.

 

The roselle freshly picked this morning.

Dad whom is not a regular vegan person, just couldn't stand another meal without any rice or meat. Hence, mom used leftover rice to fried some really tasty yet simple fried rice for him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lotus Root Peanut soup with a sweet hint (carrot)

Here's another soup cooked using my Noxxa pressure cooker. This soup is our main dinner, thus I added in some carrots so that we have more vegetables to eat rather than just the lotus , peanut and meat. It's awesome, thanks to Noxxa :) This was done in less than an hour