22 Feb 20 (Sat) - Sago Cake with Gula Melaka

Found some small sago pearls in the pantry and decided to use it all up. So what's better way to use it all up than to make sago cake.

Simply soaked the sago pearls for 15 minutes then rinsed with running water for a few minutes before cooking. Cooked till sago pearls became translucent then removed from heat and drained. Transferred them to a bowl of cold water and let them sit for a few minutes. Lightly greased a bowl before transferring the drained sago pearls into the bowl. Chilled for a couple of hours or overnight.

Served with gula melaka. Even better if served together with coconut milk.

 

21 Feb 20 (Fri) - Mee Sua Kueh (面线糕)

Joined a Facebook group called "Home-cooked Delights 家常便饭" for a while now. It was introduced to me by my sis because the members in that group tend to post photos of old-school dishes which our mum used to cook.

Saw a post on "Mee Sua Kueh (面线糕)" recently by the admin, Kenneth Goh. Read his blog post with interest and since I am spending time with my sis, I decided to give this recipe a shot.

Tried to follow the recipe as closely as possible and it seemed to turn out well until I unmould the kueh from the tray. The bottom was still a bit wet.

Fortunately, the taste was still good. Not too bad for a first attempt.

---------------- Edited on 22 Feb 2020 ----------------

Pan-fried the leftover kueh as lunch and it tasted even better because some parts became crispy. Goes well with sambal belacan.

25 Nov 19 (Mon) - Caramel Bread Pudding

Saw this video recipe in a Facebook group and decided to try. As usual, I played around with it. Swapped the milk with chocolate milk and replaced custard powder with cornstarch and vanilla extract.

I should have reduced the amount of sugar since the chocolate milk is sweet. Don't know why but I can't blend the bread into fine powder like those in the video. Wonder if it was because the bread I used was three days old.

24 Nov 19 (Sun) - Korean Ginseng Black Chicken Soup

Bought some fresh Korean ginseng from recent trip to Busan and my little big sis used it to cook Korean Ginseng Chicken Soup using the recipe from The Burning Kitchen.

We used two Korean ginseng roots instead of one because the ones I bought were rather skinny. Not sure if we had added too much water or the ginseng roots I bought were not good enough, the ginseng taste wasn't strong.

Not satisfied with the result, so decided to try again today but with a twist and some tweaks. Yes, I like to play with my food. Kekeke... Instead of large chicken, I used a small black chicken; instead of white glutinous rice, I used black glutinous rice; instead of ginger slices, I used ginger powder and I managed to get fresh chestnuts from the wet market.

Because of this recipe, I went to buy a new pot so that I can use it on the larger ring of my induction cooker. Hrm... I guess the pot width is too wide, I had to add a lot of water in order to cover the chicken and already I didn't cover the chicken in full.

Instead of cooking it for four hours as stated in the recipe, I cooked it for two hours, turning the chicken now and then to cook it all around. The smell from the soup was nice, however, the taste was rather bland and not much ginseng taste. Other than that, it was still good as chicken soup, all things considered.

In order not to make the soup cloudy with all the ingredients inside the chicken, took it out on a separate bowl to remove the ingredients.

Tada, the final product. Obviously, I need to improve on my presentation. Hahaha... Just nice for a rainy weather.

07 Apr 19 (Sun) - Mango Pineapple Ginger Ice Cream

Have not been doing special cooking nor blogging in a long while. Spring is the season and mango can be seen everywhere. Bought three Thai Honey mangoes for $3.80 from NTUC simply because I could not resist the temptation. However, three mangoes were too much for me to consume, therefore, decided to use some of them to make ice cream.

To make the three ingredients mango ice cream seems a bit boring, so googled the Internet on mango pairing. Turned out that mango goes well with passion fruit, pineapple and ginger to name a few. Since I have attempted mango passion fruit ice cream before, this round decided to try mango pineapple ginger ice cream instead.

Used the improved version of the mango ice cream recipe, adjusted the ingredients and method to this new recipe.

Ingredients:

200ml whipping cream

125g diced mango
125g diced pineapple

80g icing sugar

1 tsp ginger powder

Method:

1.  Place diced mango, pineapple and ginger powder in a sauce pan and cook over med-high heat for 8-10 minutes while stirring constantly
2.  Remove from heat and set aside to cool
3.  Pour the mixture, whipping cream and 1/3 of the icing sugar in a blender and pulse 2-3 times

4.  Add another 1/3 of the icing sugar and pulse 2-3 times

5.  Add the remaining icing sugar and blend the mixture for about 10-15 seconds
6.  Pour mixture into a container of your choice and put into the freezer

7.  Remove from freezer after 3 hours to churn* with a fork

8.  Repeat step (7) for another time before freezing it overnight

* Try to churn the mixture in a whisking manner to try to incorporate as much air into the mixture as possible

The result? Rather unique because it has a layering taste of mango, pineapple with the aftertaste of ginger lingering on the tongue.

And because I have not done any special cooking for a long time, I was in the mood to do plating. Since I bought some pickled sakura flowers from my recent Osaka trip, brain-stormed for plating ideas which I can make used of them. And ta-da!

29 Oct 18 (Mon) - Teriyaki Salmon with Mashed Potato, Carrot & Pumpkin and Steamed Milk Custard

Worked from home today and got my cooking all planned out. Had some leftover mitarashi sauce from yesterday, added some minced garlic and shallot as well as a bit more light soy sauce and water to make it into a teriyaki marinate for the salmon. Bought a portion of pumpkin over the weekend and steamed it together with a potato and half a carrot. Kept most of the mashed pumpkin for further use and mixed the rest of it together with the mashed potato and carrot. Found that the colour was a bit too orangey, so added some boiled small broccoli florets while mixing some mayonnaise. Pan-fry the salmon in my happycall pan and set it on a blue serving plate because it was Monday and typically associated with blue. LOL.

Then went on to make steamed milk custard. Since I have a lot of dried blue pea flowers lying around, so used a handful to colour the milk blue by warming the milk with the flowers in a microwave oven. The milk didn't turn very blue so I had to stir the flowers using a fork and tried to squeeze the flowers just to extract the colour. Once the colour was to my satisfaction, followed my steamed milk custard recipe but sprinkled some black sesame powder over it before steaming.

Since I have put in effort today to cook and experimented with colours, I took some photos of my creations. It was during the photo-taking that it occurred to me that had the black sesame powder converged like the shape of the different continents, the steamed milk custard would have looked like a world map with the blue being the mass of water. Haha...

28 Oct 18 (Sun) - Japanese Curry and Black Sesame Mitarashi Kushi Dango

Things have slowed down a little and I managed to find time again today to do some cooking. Nothing fanciful. Just some chicken Japanese curry and black sesame mitarashi kushi dango since I have ingredients lying around. I have attempted mitarashi kushi dango before, only this time round I added 1-1.5 tablespoon of black sesame powder to the dough.

Since Halloween is just a few days away, the black sesame mitarashi kushi dango seems like a good idea. Unfortunately, nothing scary to decorate the plate.

30 Sep 18 (Sun) - Baked Orange Honey Salmon

It has been a busy year so far and not much time for serious or experimental cooking. Little big sis tagged me to a couple of FB posts few weeks ago, one on Grilled Chipotle-orange Salmon and another on Cilantro Lime Salmon. We wanted to give them a go but unfortunately, there simply wasn't any right time to try.

So today I finally found time to try the recipes out on my own. Looked through both of them, googled a few more and came up with my own version. Took some time to decorate the plate since it has been a long while since I put in effort to do cooking.

Ingredients:

1 piece 340g salmon fillet 1/2 cup fresh orange juice orange zest from 2 oranges 1 tbsp light soy sauce (optional) salt and pepper

2 orange slices                    2 tbsp honey                    1/2-1 tbsp olive oil/butter                    1/2 tsp ground ginger                    corn starch for thickening

Method:
1.  Marinate salmon with salt and pepper and set aside.
2.  Preheat the oven to 190 degree Celsius.
3.  Combine orange juice, orange zest, honey, olive oil/butter, light soy sauce (if using), ground ginger in a sauce pan over medium heat.
4.  Stir constantly till well combined and smooth.
5.  Add corn starch to thicken the mixture.
6.  Line a baking tray with aluminium foil.
7.  Pour some sauce on the foil, place the salmon skin up on the foil and pour remaining sauce over it.
8.  Bake for 4 minutes and turn the salmon over.
9.  Spoon some sauce over it and place the orange slices on top of the salmon.
10. Bake for another 8-10 minutes.
For a job well-done, I rewarded myself with a glass of orange beer from Don Don Donki. 

27 May 18 (Sun) - Brown Sugar Peanut Ice Cream

Have not done any experimental cooking for a long while. Found a pack of brown sugar peanuts, which I bought from Okinawa last December, and a pack of fine brown sugar in the pantry. So decided to try my hands on making brown sugar (peanut) ice cream which I had tasted in Okinawa. 

Looked through the ice cream recipes that I have and came up with my own version. I had very high expectations of how it would turn out, unfortunate, it was not what I had in mind. The taste was great, texture was smooth but it was too soft. Remembered that I had searched the Internet about this issue before and I think it was due to the sugar level. I could have added a tad too much sugar to the ice cream mixture that caused the freezing point to be lower and hence the inability to freeze properly.

Oh well... guess I had to settle for brown sugar peanut milkshake instead. Nevertheless, I won't give up on this recipe just yet. Will fine-tune it and try again.

Ingredients:

200ml whipping cream

100ml milk

150g brown sugar peanuts

50g fine brown sugar

1 tsp condense milk

Method:

1.  Pulse brown sugar peanuts in food processor into smaller bits

2.  Add milk to the processed brown sugar peanuts and set aside

3.  Whisk whipping cream till soft peak

4.  Add brown sugar peanuts mixture, fine brown sugar and condense milk to the whipping cream

5.  Mix till well combined

6.  Pour mixture into a container of your choice and put into the freezer

7.  Remove from freezer after 2 hours to churn* with a fork
8.  Repeat step (7) for 3-4 times before freezing it overnight

* Try to churn the mixture in a whisking manner to try to incorporate as much air into the mixture as possible

21 Jan 18 (Sun) - Salted Egg Bittergourd and Durian Butter Cupcakes

Was tidying up my drawer of recipes last weekend when I saw a newspaper cutting on a recipe called "Salted egg white bittergourd". Recalled that I still had two salted eggs sitting in my fridge so went to Giant supermarket last Friday to get two mini bittergourds. As white bittergourd is hard to come by, I had to settle for the green ones.

Followed the recipe as closely as I could, however, I didn't know what is red finger chilli nor green bird's eye chilli so I replaced with three red chilli padi instead. And because I didn't have enough garlic, so I added a shallot. Was happily cooking and excited to see the whole dish coming together nicely. After I had assembled the dish on a serving plate, then I realised that I had forgotten to add a dash of ground white pepper at the end of the cooking. Oh well... Not sure how soft the bittergourd was supposed to be for the dish, mine still retained some crunchiness which I rather like. Taste-wise, fortunately, it still tasted good without the ground white pepper. Heh.

In the short write-up that accompanied the recipe, it was mentioned that the dish goes well with rice or porridge. Therefore, I cooked some brown rice porridge and added some seaweed that I bought from my last Okinawa trip to eat as lunch. What a healthy meal.

Still had some leftover durians in the fridge and decided to use them to bake durian butter cupcakes since the durians weren't of very good quality. The preparation was easy and very happy that the cupcakes turned out very well. A good start to the first bake of the year. Ate one while it was still warm together with a dollop of chilled durian and it was heavenly! My healthy meal was, therefore, spoiled by the unhealthy dessert. LOL.

Durian Butter Cupcakes (Makes 5)

Ingredients:

58g self-rising flour 63g butter - soften 43g castor sugar

pinch of baking soda                                                      63g durian flesh                                                      1 egg

Method:

1.  Preheat oven to 160 degree celsius

2.  Place the butter and sugar in a large bowl and whisk till light and fluffy

3.  Add egg and beat thoroughly

4.  Stir in durian flesh

5.  Fold in self-rising flour and baking soda

6.  Fill cupcake cases till 2/3 full with cake batter

7.  Bake for 18 minutes or until cooked

8.  Do the toothpick test, if the toothpick comes out clean, transfer the cakes to a wire rack and allow to cool

9.  Serve cakes with dollops of chilled durian or eat them on their own