dimanche, septembre 30, 2007

Tuna Roll

I made these last Friday. Yummy and easy tidbits!
I have not venture in pastry yet. So I just bought the ready-made pastry dough from the supermarket. hihihi... Merci, Marie!!!



Banana Loaf

Ok.. other than planning to cook this weekend, I planned to bake as well.
At the beginning I planned to bake cookies. But then, we have bunch of bananas which started to turn brown. So change of plan. I go bananas!
Will it be banana cake? banana muffin? banana bread?
I go for banana bread loaf. Well, don't know what's the diffrence between the load and cake. I chose a recipe from Malaysian cooking website, http://www.kuali.com.

Walnut Banana Bread
by Amy Beh

Ingredients
280g ripe bananas, peeled and mashed
125g margarine
240g castor sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 large eggs, beaten with a fork
300g plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder, sifted
3/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
70ml milk
80g walnuts, coarsely chopped
Method
Preheat oven to 180°C.

Beat margarine, sugar and salt together until light then add eggs and beat for 2 minutes. Add in the mashed bananas and mix well.

Add sifted dry ingredients. Stir in milk to mix. Add walnuts to blend.

Spoon mixture into a lightly greased and lined loaf tin (21cm x 10.5cm x 8.5cm). Level the surface with a palette knife and bake in preheated oven for 45–60 minutes or until cooked through.

Leave in the tin for 5–10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.


I made some changes to the above recipe though, hehehhehe
- I don't have walnut, so I omitted the walnut
- I used butter instead of margarine
- I used only like 75g sugar, because I ran out of sugar! But the cake turned out sweet enough. So I think reducing the sugar is a good idea.
- I add in a 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
- For the flour part, I put 200gm self rising flour and 100gm corn flour (maizena)

...And here's the result


Nasi Lemak and Sambal Ikan Bilis

This weekend, I'm undecided between nasi ayam and nasi lemak
Nasi ayam:
- rice cooked in chicken broth
Nasi lemak:
- rice cooked in coconut milk

Until Saturday evening groceries, I haven't got a clue of what to cook.
This morning, I woke up (early mind you), and after I just remember that during groceries I bought canned tomatoes, for anchovies sambal (sambal ikan bilis). Therefore, I decided OK, we'll do nasi lemak then. Sambal can be eaten with basically any rice. But it's best to it with nasi lemak! But to make nasi lemak, I need coconut milk. I rummaged through my kitchen, and there it is! A can of coconut milk (which I don't know how long it's been there ihihihi. I checked the expiry date and it's still OK. So I thought there is no difference between when it's been sitting there in my kitchen or in the shop, rite?
So, rice - check, coconut milk - check, chilies - check, canned tomatoes - check
The anchovies?? I always knew that I have a tupperware of dried anchovies stored in the fridge. My mom posted it to me ages ago. I think early this year or so. I thought.. dried anchovies, in the fridge, in airtight container.. they can't turn bad, can they? I open the container and zooming for any moving micro-organisme. Looks good to me. In fact, the anchovies looked so clean!

I started with the nasi (rice) first. Amazingly I always prefer to cook rice in a pot "manual" way, rather than using the rice cooker.
Went in the rice, water, coconut milk, ginger slices and a bit of salt.
Oh.. I don't have the exact measurement for those ingredients. As for the rice+water+coconut milk proportion, I used the "manual" method, taught by my mom, aunt and grandma. I measure it by using my fingers.
Anyway.. while the rice on the stove, I started omelette. Usually hard-boiled eggs accompanied nasi lemak. But I'm kinda lazy to use yet another clean pot. So I just make do with omelette, so that I could still use the pan to fried the sambal.
Omelette done.

Now the anchovies sambal.
Again I don't use exact measurement, but here are the ingredients:
Anchovies Sambal (Sambal Ikan Bilis)
- Dried anchovies (washed and soaked in warm water)
- Onion
- Ginger
- Garlic
- Ground chilies
- Canned tomatoes
- Salt
- Sugar
- Lemon juice

Drain and fry the anchovies. When they turned yellowish, set aside.
Add a bit more oil, then add in onion, ginger, garlic, ground chillies.
After that, add in fried anchovies, add in canned tomatoes, salt to taste, lemon juice and sugar.
Cook in high heat and toss until the sambal dried as your liking. I like my sambal a bit dry.

Serve the nasi lemak with sambal and omelette.. There you go!


Dried anchovies



Anchovies Sambal (sambal ikan bilis)



jeudi, septembre 27, 2007

Roti

Since it's getting colder these days, I had the tendency to leave work (on time) and straight heading home. Therefore I have ample time to be busy in the kitchen.
Yesterday, I found a Roti Canai recipe on the net, and thought "hey, I have all those ingredients" So I started rolling my sleeves and mix one ingredient to another. Mind you, I don't have electric mixer. All those cooking are by these 2 bare hands! I stored the dough in the fridge so it will be ready when I'm home the next day.
Today, as I got home, I am all fired up to do some Roti Canai.
But, my mistake (a bit), because I didn't leave them to be at room temperature. I straight flatten out the dough and it's a tough task! In addition, I'm all hungry and can't wait to eat my dinner!
For roti canai, you need to spread the dough until it is very thin. If you missed, you might tear the dough. To do so, you need lots and lots of oil. I don't really like playing with oil, coz it's kinda icky. Anyway, it's a good adventure. hihihi
Here are the pics of my dinner: Roti Canai and Beef Thai Curry





dimanche, septembre 23, 2007

Nutella Cupcake

Feel like to bake this weekend...
While searching for cake/cookies recipe, I stumbled on lots and lots of websites which featured cupcakes. I thought.. why not. Since usually the recipe is for 12 cupcakes, they are small. There are only 2 people in the house, so I'm not looking forward for a big cake. So cupcake it is! I spent Saturday getting all the ingredients.
Before that, I have to decide on one recipe from all the recipes what I found on the net. For first timer, I thought Nutella cupcake could be the winner. Nutella always taste good.. so I can't go wrong there!

So here is the recipe:

Nutella Frosted Cupcakes
10 tbsp(140 grams) butter, softened
3/4 cup white sugar
3 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 3/4 cups (200 grams) sifted ap flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
Nutella, approx. 1/3 cup

Preheat oven to 325F. Line 12 muffin tins with paper liners.
Cream together butter and sugar until light, 2 minutes. Add in eggs one at a time, until fully incorporated. Don't worry if the batter doesn't look smooth. Add vanilla. Stir in flour, salt and baking powder until batter is uniform and no flour remains.
Using an ice cream scoop, fill each muffin liner with batter. They should be 3/4 full, if you're not using a scoop. Top each cake with 1 1/2 tsp Nutella. Swirl Nutella in with a toothpick, making sure to fold a bit of batter up over the nutella.
Bake for 20 minutes.
Remove to a wire rack to cool completely.
Makes 12.

Here is the cupcake! Just spread the top with nutella and sprinkle some multicolor chocolate rice... (The cupcake burnt a bit coz I put on quite high temperature huhuhu)