Buttercake

Love this buttercake recipe shared by Bakingmum. Used half of the recipe to make this.

Ingredients
250 gm butter
200 gm caster sugar
6 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
300 gm self-raising flour (sifted)
½ to 3/4 cup of evaporated milk (Used 1/2 cup eventhough halved the recipe)

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 160°C.
2. Beat the butter with the caster sugar until white and fluffy. Add in eggs one at a time and mix well. Then add in vanilla essence and evaporated milk and mix well.
3. Lastly fold in sifted flour into the butter mixture and mix well. Pour into a greased and lined cake tray and bake for about an hour

Dinner on Saturday (2)

Prepared 4 simple dishes for 6 – (i) honey chicken, (ii) steamed garlic and ginger fish, (iii) kai-lan with vegetable sauce and (iv) steamed eggs. The recipe for the honey chicken was adapted from Bay Books. Here sharing how the steamed fish was prepared. Fry garlic (chopped finely) and set aside. Fry ginger paste (grind ginger and spring onion) and set aside.
Rub salt on cleaned fish and set aside for at least 10 minutes. Wash and drain off.
Place fish on steaming plate and add ¼ cup of water, 2 tbsp onion oil and 1 tbsp soya sauce.
Steam for 5 minutes. Add in fried garlic and ginger paste and steam for another 5 minutes.
Garnish with diced spring onion.

For the vegetable dish, boil the kai-lan for 4-5 minutes and serve it on a plate. Add in vegetable sauce and fried chopped garlic with oil.

Here is the recipe for the steamed eggs.

Ingredients:
4 eggs
1 tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
1tsp soya sauce
1 tsp onion oil
5 chinese mushroom (sliced)
½ bowl minced meat (fried)

1. Place sliced mushrooms and fried minced meat in a steaming plate.
2. Beat eggs in a bowl and add equal volume of water to eggs. Add salt and pepper.
3. Pour the eggs mixture into the steaming plate and steam for 10 –12 minutes using low heat.
4. Pour in soya sauce and onion oil over the surface.
5. Garnish with diced spring onion and serve hot.

Steam Sponge Cake

Steam sponge cake was one of my favourite during childhood and thanks to Cook Bake Legacy for sharing this wonderful recipe. Was delighted when the cake turned out so good and seeing hubby and daughter enjoyed eating it. It was a successful attempt although I halved the recipe. Will definitely do it again soon.

The cake texture was so soft.

Here is the recipe adapted from Cook Bake Legacy:

Ingredients:

250 gm top flour

250 gm caster sugar

2 tbsp milk powder

6 large eggs

60 gm corn oil

Method: Sift flour and milk powder together. Beat the eggs and sugar together till light pale in color and the ribbon stage. (If you lift the beaters up and do a figure of eight on the batter, the figure of 8 must be visible for about 3 secs. before disappearing). Gradually fold in the flour mixture and oil and batter till well mix using a spatula. Pour batter into a 8" square baking pan lined with greaseproof paper.
Cover the top with aluminium foil.Steam on high heat for 30 mins and check if skewer comes out clean.If not steam for another 5 to 10 mins.

Mini Pizza

It’s a holiday today and decided to make mini pizzas for breakfast. Went easy by using pita bread as the base instead of making the dough from scratch. Instead of using grated mozzarella cheese, used sliced cheddar cheese. Overall it tasted good but not wonderful and find brocolli not suitable. However, daughter enjoyed making the funny face pizza no doubt she finds it a little scary when she saw these pictures later :-)

This was for hubby.

Tom Yam Mee Suah

The noodle used here is called Fried Mee Suah (fine wheat vermicelli). Used the Tom Yam paste bought from Thailand for the soup base, adding coconut milk for better taste. Tom Yam is a soup originating from Thailand and perhaps one of the most famous dishes in Thai cuisine.

The paste from Thailand.

3-side Fried Chicken

Started the first day of December with this easy and quick to prepare meal. The fried chicken was served with 3 side dishes i.e. baby potatoes, cherry tomatoes and broccoli (baked it with cheese) bought from Cameron Highlands, a place famous for their fresh vegetables besides strawberry farms, flower nurseries and tea plantations.

Chinese Roast Chicken with Gravy

This recipe was adapted from All Recipes. Instead of using whole chicken, used only half chicken and half the ingredients accordingly. Did some modification to the chicken after reading some reviews. The chicken came out wonderful but need to improve on the gravy, as personally it tasted a little mild but overall its a good simple dish. Here is the recipe from All Recipes

1 (4 pound) whole chicken
¾ cup soy sauce
1/3 cup sesame oil
1 cup chicken stock
1/8 cup cornstarch

Method:
Preheat oven to 200 degrees C.
Place chicken in a roasting pan. Coat with soy sauce and bake at 400 degrees F (200 degrees C) for 30 minutes; reduce heat to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) and bake for 1 hour.
Drizzle oil over chicken and bake for another 10 minutes. Remove chicken from oven, place on a platter and keep warm.

To Make Gravy: Put roasting pan on stove; pour chicken stock into pan and bring to a boil, stirring frequently, scraping up bits of caramelized soy sauce. In a small bowl, combine cornstarch and water and mix; stir this mixture into roasting pan and stir until well combined and a nice, thick gravy is made. Serve with roasted chicken.

Modification Made: Rub chopped garlic (2 cloves), onion (1/2) and ginger (about 1 inch) under the skin and sprinkle some ground black pepper in addition to the soy sauce and oil.

Black Pepper Chicken

Here's the black pepper chicken. Added more sauce this time. Had finished this sauce and need to replenish soon but unfortunately, I think it's only available in Sarawak.

Black Pepper Pork 24 Sept 08

Mum gave a packet of black pepper sauce from Sarawak and tried using it to make simple pork dish (tried replacing pork with chicken and it tasted as good). It must be the sauce which make this dish tasteful. This is how I do it. Deep fry the pork and set it aside. Leave a bit of oil in the wok. Stir fry one onion (sliced) and then add in 1 cup of the black pepper sauce, 1 tbsp of sugar and 1/2 cup of water. Let the sauce simmer for a while and then add in the pork/chicken. Place some baked cashew nuts on the dish.

Soft Tofu

As a working mum, am constantly looking for dishes that is easy to prepare and fast to cook and this is one of them. We love tofu and it has always been a nice dish to pair with others.

Here is the recipe:

1 piece rectangular soft tofu
½ cup dried prawns (pounded)
1 tbsp oil
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tsp dark soy sauce
2 tbsp spring onion (diced)
½ red chilli (sliced)

1. Place the soft tofu on a plate and steam for 8 minutes.
2. Heat up wok with oil and saute the dried prawns until fragrant. Dish on the soft tofu and add light soy sauce and soy sauce. Garnish with red chilli and spring onion.

Green Curry Chicken

Another day where instant sauce came to the rescue in preparing a simple meal for 3.

Added brinjal, ladyfingers and tomatoes into the green curry and had

fried eggs for a complete meal.

Dinner on Saturday

My FiL came over for dinner and had prepared these dishes.
Steam Fish: Firstly, rub salt on the fish. Place ginger, carrot, chinese mushroom, red chilli, ham choy (all sliced thinly) and asam boi on the fish. Add fish sauce and steam for 10-12 minutes.

Fried Ladyfingers: Heat up wok with oil, stir fry chopped garlic and dried prawns for a minute. Add in ladyfingers (sliced diagonally) and sliced red chilli and stir fry until the ladyfingers are soft. Add soy sauce to taste.

For satisfaction guaranteed, complemented the dishes with our all time favorite i.e. Roasted Pork. Of course this was not self-cooked but bought from the market nearby our place and it taste consistently good.

The favorite dish for the day was Tofu with Mincemeat: Fry 2 packs of Japanese tofu and set aside. Heat the wok with oil, stir fry chopped garlic and chinese mushroom for a minute. Add in mincemeat and soy sauce and stir fry for 2 minutes. Add in mix vegetable, salt to taste and ¾ cup of water and let it simmers for 4-5 minutes. Thicken the sauce with corn flour. Dish the mincemeat on the tofu and serve hot.

Sausage Pie

This dish is suppose to be called mexican sausage pie as it uses pork chipolata sausages (a type of small thin sausage originally from Mexico which I don't think are sold in Malaysia). Anyway went ahead to try it by replacing it with pork BBQ sausages. The sauce is good as it uses onion, baked bean and white button mushroom. The top was spread with mashed potatoes (which I would add more the next time I make this again).

Source: Baked

Orange Roasted Chicken

I have been contemplating to prepare main meal using the oven for quite sometime but have not come across any quick and easy recipe until I found this which uses really simple ingredients, only butter, garlic and orange. It feels great to be able to have a nice simple healthy meal even when we are back from work late. The chicken was prepared earlier i.e. marinated and refrigerated overnight and needed only 30 minutes to roast it. Love the simple taste and the juiciness of the chicken. For a complete meal, added mashed potatoes and mix vegetable as side dishes.

My daughter had her dinner earlier but when she saw the chicken, she was so keen to try and ate half of it. It’s such a pleasure to see her enjoying it together with the mashed potatoes.

Source: Bay Books

Banana Cinnamon Muffins

Thanks to Hugbear for sharing this recipe. It has the right taste and moist. Simply delicious. Even my mum who is such a good cook said it's good.

Here is the recipe:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup of butter
70 grams brown sugar
70 grams castor sugar
1 cup mashed ripe banana
2 eggs
6 tablespoons UHT milk
1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1.5 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt



1. Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon and set aside.
2. In a separate bowl cream butter and sugar, add eggs and mix until smooth. Stir in milk and mashed banana and mix well.
3. Fold in flour mixture into the liquid ingredients until combined.
4. Fill the muffin tins two-thirds of the way full.
5. Bake in a preheated 170C for 25 minutes.

Steam Big Prawns

After work, both hubby and I were not feeling really hungry and decided no rice for today. At the end, we just had prawns that my hubby bought from Tawau, Sabah, Malaysia. It only takes about 10 minutes to prepare and 8 minutes to steam it. Firstly, rub salt to the prawns and then place a tbsp of cooking oil, seafood sauce to taste and sprinkle some shredded ginger.



mmm..... it tasted so fresh.

Pong Teh Chicken

Found out this is a traditional dish originated from State of Malacca. Still doesn't know what is the meaning of "Pong Teh". Anyway, love this dish as the gravy is really nice - uses soy bean paste and lots of shallots.

Source: Recipe by Lucy Koh

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Tried another recipe from Biscuit Code by Florence Tan. I think I've made them a little too chunky.

Stir-Fried Four-Angle Beans with Belacan

This is one of my favourite vegetable due to its crunchiness and commonly my top selection when eating Malay food. Spotted this vegetable in the market (Wow! It only cost me RM0.50) and gave it a try.

Ingredient A

150g four-angle beans, sliced diagonally
salt and sugar to taste

Ingredient B (Blend)

1 red chilli
2 thin slices ginger
5 cloves garlic
6 cloves shallots
50g of dried prawns
11/2 teaspoon of belacan

Heat oil in a wok. Stir-fry blended Ingredient B until fragrant. Add in a pinch of salt and sugar. Throw in the four-angle beans, sprinkle a bit of water and stir-fry briskly for 2-3 minutes.

Mini Cupcakes

Friends have planned for a steamboat cum barbeque party and made these for the kids. It's exactly the same recipe for the simple cupcake save for they are made into mini sizes.

Kuih Bahulu

This is one of my favourite kuih since young. My grandma used to buy it from the market. It tasted really nice i.e. soft inside and crisp outside and I can eat a few at one go. Since I do not have the actual mold for baking the kuih bahulu and can't wait to try the recipe when I spotted it at the Rasa Malaysia site, tried baking it using the mini muffin tray and it turns out great. It's what I really wish for... soft inside and crisp outside :-) Thumbs up from both hubby and daughter.

Pack a few for my daughter in her favourite container.

Ingredients:
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 1/4 cup flour (sifted)
1 teaspoon vanilla essence1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
2 tablespoons cooking oil/butter

Method used:
Beat the eggs until frothy and then add sugar. Continue to beat until the sugar is well dissolved and the mixture becomes sticky. Add in the vanilla essence and fold in the flour gradually and then add in the cooking oil. Continue to beat the batter until well-blended. Grease the kuih bahulu moulds and fill up to the surface level.Bake in preheated oven at 375 degree for about 15 minutes or until golden brown. Remove bahulu from the moulds and cool on wire racks.

Prawn Fritters

This recipe was obtained from colleague's recipe collection book which she hasn't try yet. I think it would taste much better if they were done into smaller sizes. How about adding fresh prawns?

Ingredients:
(About 30 fritters)

1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup dried prawns, soaked in hot water (chopped)
1 big onion
1 egg
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 cup warm water
Coriander leaves (cut up fine)
Oil for deep frying

Put the flour, baking powder, salt and egg in a mixing bowl. Add the warm water slowly until you have a thick batter. Add the dried prawns, onion and coriander leaves and mix well. Meanwhile, heat up the cooking oil and when hot, drop spoonfuls of batter into the oil and fry the fritters until golden brown. Serve with chilli sauce.