Grilled Seafood and Vegetable Spaghettini

This is a something that I would prepare whenever I do not make early dinner plans which means I forgot to defrost the meat or fish. If there is seafood in the freezer and some eggplants and bell peppers in the fridge, this would be a quick dinner dish.

Ingredients:

For roasting:
Bell peppers
Eggplants
Garlic
Zucchini (if you plan ahead)
Tomatoes (I used overripe cherry tomatoes that I need to finish off quick)

** so marinate all veges with olive oil, black pepper and salt, set aside for a few minutes.

Seafood : Marinate prawns, cuttlefish, mussels (if planning ahead of course) with all same ingredients of the vege marinade only add some paprika for added flavour set aside too while you turn on the grill in the oven.

Spread all marinated ingredients onto a roasting dish, splash a little more olive oil if necessary.

Prepare the following for sauteing:
Onions
Garlic
Red chillies
3/4 boiled spaghettini

Final step:

Saute all the above apart from the spaghettini. Add the spaghettini. I also save some boiled spaghettini water, so this is added to the fried spaghettini to make it a little moist and tastier (a tip I picked up from watching the cooking shows on tv). Then I throw in all the roasted "goodness". Season to taste and toss to mix. Finally garnish with some roughly chopped parsley and my kids love them served with grated cheese too. That's it really. Have a try and enjoy.

Laksa Johor - Ala Chef Wan

My latest birthday treat was Chef Wan's - A Taste of Malaysia.

I love the recipes in this book. 

Tried a few already and will continue to do so, one recipe at a time.

I've been trying to learn to cook Laksa Johor. As a second attempt, I tried Chef Wan's recipe.

I got a thumbs up from my family, my friends at work and even my mother! 

My Laksa Johor - Ala Chef Wan.

Here's the recipe:

Gravy

Vegetable oil

Ginger

Shallots

Garlic

Dried prawns

Fish Curry powder

Prawns

Coconut Milk/Cream

Lemon grass

Galangal

Mackerel Fillet 

( I used canned Tuna in water, it was a Monday working day after all - 

who has the time to poach, debone and mince a whole fish!)

Dried sour fruit (asam gelugor)

Pounded roasted grated or desiccated coconut (kerisik)

Spaghetti

Kalamansi limes

Sambal Belacan

Red Chillies

Dried prawn paste (belacan)

Salt

Lime Juice

Garnish

Cucumber

Laksa leaves

Bean Sprouts

Onions

Long Beans

Method:

• Combine ingredients for Sambal Belacan in a food processor and blend until smooth. Set aside.(But of course pounding them silly with a pestle and mortar gives a thicker and less watery sambal belacan, authentic traditional way.)
• Heat the oil in a heavy pot and fry the ginger, shallots, garlic and dried prawns until fragrant. Add the curry powder and fry for 2 minutes.
• Add the prawns, coconut cream, lemongrass and galangal. Leave to simmer.
• Add the mackerel and dried sour fruit and continue to simmer for 20 minutes.
• Add the pounded grated coconut to the stock. Stir and cook for another 2 minutes. If the sauce is too thick, dilute with hot water. ( I used prawn stock prepared by simmering the prawn shells in water earlier).
• To serve, divide spaghetti into serving bowls. Garnish with the cucumber, laksa leaves, bean sprouts, onions and long beans.
• Pour the sauce over the spaghetti, squeeze some lime on it and serve with sambal belacan on the side.

** I also added Torch Ginger Buds (bunga kantan) as garnish.

Wallaaaa... easy peasy lemon squeezy. If I can do this so can you. 

I don't provide exact measurements (which are provided in the book by the way), because I tend to not follow them strictly. Good luck, happy cooking.

Cookbooks.

Love them.

Love browsing through them.

Love reading them.

Love collecting them.

Love using them.

My cookbook shelf #01 which contains some celebrity cookbooks.

I tend to get them as birthday treats for myself on my birthdays.

Okay, so sometimes I don't necessarily wait for my birthday to treat myself.

Got a couple too from hubby on my birthday a few years back.

Cookbook shelf #02.

This shelf has recipe books from unknown cooks, from a friend's brother's vocational school, mini cook books, online recipes, my mother's recipes from her cooking/baking lessons, old books bought way back when I was studying at uni... 

Notice the yellow folder on the very right? It contains loose sheets of recipes.

The full scape paper book in blue, well that contains my highly used recipes, either hand-written or pasted from online print outs. Precious! Have not gotten to beautifying it yet. Will get to it soon. Shall definitely blog about it, once I've done it.

So, if you have no idea what to get for me for my next birthday... now you do! :-D

If it's Curry night...

it usually means it's Chicken Curry.

and it usually means I wouldn't be cooking it!

Yeay.... off day, well not totally. I become more of the sous chef really. 

I must make sure that all ingredients are laid out, and I have to make sure that all things 

have been chopped by my assistant accordingly.

The executive chef shall then enter the kitchen to do his "thang"... to cook his Special Chicken Curry.

The sauteing of z shallots... with z right amount of spices.

 

Other ingredients all good to go.

Man at work.

Seriously cooking up a storm!

 

Just look at the amount of curry that went into the pot! 

Personally... I wouldn't use that much, that's why I've been banned from cooking chicken curry

 (and I am soooo upset! pfft!).

Taraaa... hubby's Chicken Curry... notice the feet! I shall reserve my thoughts on those!

Your cooking is just fab! How about learning another dish dear??? 

Ribs & Caesar Salad tonight.

For dinner tonight I decided to cook the ribs that we got from last weekend's Eid Al-Adha Korban. Just look at the size of the ribs! Unfortunately there were not much meat on it, but I decided to roast them anyhow.

Marinated with Smoky BBQ sauce, rosemary, black pepper and salt. 

Par boiled some potatoes and toss them together with the ribs in the oven. 

Found some leftover mushrooms and carrots in the fridge, added those to the roasting pan too.

 

As expected, the meat was very little, good thing I had some frozen baked pasta 

and broccoli soup as side dishes.

Oh, and I made Caesar Salad for the first time ever!

I totally love San Francisco Coffee's Caesar Salad (why SFC particularly?, well simply because it's in my office building and it's a quick take away for my late lunches after gym). I found romaine lettuce (or cos lettuce) at the supermarket this morning, so I decided to try the dressing recipe that I found online sometime last week. I thought it turned out well, at least the kids loved it.

Caesar Salad Dressing

Ingredients:

3/4 cup mayonnaise or less

1 tbsp lemon juice

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

1 clove of garlic minced (1 used 2 cloves)

1/4 tsp salt

1/8 tsp pepper

1/2 C Parmesan Cheese ( I have no idea what this C meant, so  I just added as much as I liked the taste)

1 tbsp of milk ( I also added as much as it felt right)

I also added a couple of squirts of mustard and a dash of olive oil

Method:

Mix all ingredients together and I blitzed with my trusty hand blender. Chill before serving.

Serve the lettuce chilled too, and throw in some home made croutons in the end before serving. Divine!

Source: Cook.com

Croutons

Ingredients:

A few pieces of bread.

Remove crusts, but I find that it's wasteful to do so, leave it in if you don't mind crusts.

Spread with garlic infused olive oil before dicing.

Roast in the oven or pan-fry without oil.

Leave to cool before serving.

***********

So how did my family enjoy the meal?

Like this.

And this...

This one just loves to be photographed! 

Another chocolate chip cookie recipe?

Really? Yeah, by now you would have thought you 

already have THE chocolate chip cookie recipe that you'd use till... forever right? Well, yes that's what I thought when I first got a chocolate chip cookie recipe when I was in my teens. Another when everyone received this chain emails about Famous Amos Cookie Recipe years ago until.... I got Nigella's KITCHEN and tried her cookie recipe! And followed her suggestion to scoop with ice-cream scoops! I ended up with huge chunk of cookies that are just out of this world.  So yes, this is my last chocolate chip cookie recipe ever! :-)

 Ingredients:
150g unsalted butter
125g soft light brown sugar
100g caster sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 egg, fridge-cold
1 egg, yolk fridge-cold
300g flour
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 X 326g packet milk chocolate morsels or chocolate chip

 ** I used Van Houten's chocolate buttons and chocolate chips
Imagine how chocolatey the cookies are!
** If you want the cookies to be less sweet, just reduce the sugar measurements a little.

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 170 degrees celcius. Line a baking sheet with baking parchment.
• Melt the butter and let it cool a bit. Put the brown and white sugars into a bowl, pour the slightly cooled, melted butter over them and beat together. 
• Beat in the vanilla, the cold egg and cold egg yolk until your mixture is light and creamy.
• Slowly mix in the flour and bicarb until just blended, then fold in the chocolate chips.
• Scoop the cookie dough into an American quarter-cup measure or a 60ml ice cream scoop and drop onto the prepared baking sheet, plopping the cookies down about 8cm apart. You will need to make these in 2 batches keeping the bowl of cookie dough in the fridge between batches.
• Bake for 15-17 minutes in the pre-heated oven, or until the edges are lightly toasted. Cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to wire racks.

Here's the cookie jar that will not be full for long... once you fill it with these yummy cookies!

Maybe you can try this recipe for this Eid??? 

Wordless Wednesday

Baked Doughnuts

Here's a simple recipe that I have used over and over again. Something that I got from one of the recipe books received during the Naturel Bento workshop that I attended (thanks to advertlets :-)). Do give it a go. Make double batches at least because I can assure you it will just disappear as soon as you serve it! I usually make 2 batches, serve 1 and freeze the other batch for a surprise tea time treat another day.

Ingredients:

50ml Naturel Blend Cooking Oil
2 large eggs
80 ml sour cream or plain yogurt
1tbsp lemon juice
120g self-raising flour
20g cocoa
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
80g caster sugar
pinch of salt
Naturel Soft Margerine, to grease

STEP 1

Brush a 12-hole doughnut pan lightly with Naturel  Soft Margarine and preheat oven to 160 degrees celcius. Beat Naturel Blend Cooking Oil, eggs, yoghurt and lemon juice together with a fork until well mixed.

STEP 2

Sift flour and bicarbonate of soda into a mixing bowl and stir in sugar and salt. Make a well in the centre and pour in the liquid ingredients (from STEP 1). Mix until well combined.

STEP 3

Spoon mixture into greased tins, filling only half-full and bake for 10 - 12 minutes or until well risen and a skewer inserted into doughnuts comes out clean. Remove from tin and cool on wire rack. If you wish, sprinkle the top lightly with some sifted icing sugar before serving.

** if you wish to freeze some, once cooled, place in containers and freeze immediately.

Enjoy!

Divine or Dreadful - cooking with Chefel Flip N Cook

Cooking has never been easier since I got this Flip "n" Cook Pan from Cosway. A friend asked me if I could get it for her since I live about 200m from a branch. Since I'm getting one for her I thought, I might as well get one for myself. Got it last week and I have been making a few iftar dishes with it.

Grilled Fish on Iftar Day 3.

Fried these Fish Fillets before Cooking them in Soy Sauce for Iftar Day 4.

and today for Iftar Day 6, I made these Spicy Clams.

It really does what the booklet cum recipe book that comes with it claims to do, cooks without splatter, though you need to be careful with the steam vent at the end. If you have plenty of liquid in the pan, do be careful when you flip it. Otherwise, this pan is just Divine.

Oh, by the way... do you wanna get this pan for yourself but don't know how. Well just leave your email address in the comment box if interested and I shall get in touch with you. 

Iftar Day 2

For the 2nd day yesterday, I made Curry Noodles (Mee Kari). I cheated because I used this ready made paste that I bought at the Pasat Tani from this lovely couple who sells all sorts of home made paste. Thank you for making cooking easier for me. I normally get the Curry Noodles and the Assam Laksa paste.

Hubby bought my favourite Singapore Rojak from the Ramadhan Bazaar.

And also our favourite Putu Piring, which he queued for a whole 15 minutes!

Thanks hubby dearest.

Now what's the dish for today then?

Iftar Day 1

Ayam Percik - That's what I made for the 1st day of Ramadhan iftar yesteday.It also had mixed vegetable with mushroom soup to go with the rice.

What did you have for iftar yesterday?

Red Velvet Cupcakes

My 1st attempt was a cake, please click for recipe.

This time cupcakes!

I thing I nailed it this time.

Thanks to Nigella's wonderful recipe in this Simply Divine book.

If you have been thinking about getting this book, go and get it NOW! 

I have tried 3 recipes so far: Apple and Cinnamon Muffins, Chocolate Banana Muffins

and this Red Velvet Cupcakes. 

Simple yet Divine, darling.

for the cupcakes:

250g plain flour (I used superfine)

2 x 15ml tablespoon cocoa powder, sifted

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

100g soft unsalted butter

200g caster sugar

1 x heaped 15ml tablespoon red paste food colouring

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 eggs

175 buttermilk (see how to make buttermilk here)

1 teaspoon cider vinegar or other vinegar

2 x 12-bun muffin tins

• Preheat the oven to 170C/gas mark 3 and line the muffin tins with paper cases.
• Combine the flour, cocoa, baking powder and bicarb in a bowl.
• In another bowl, cream the butter and sugar, beating well, and when you have a soft, pale mixture beat in the food colouring - all of it - and the vanilla.
• Into this vividly coloured mixture, still beating, add 1 spoonful of dried ingredients, then 1 egg, followed by some more dried ingredients, then the other egg, followed by the rest of the dried ingredients.
• Finally, beat in the buttermilk and vinegar and divide this extraordinary batter between the 24 cases (I got more, because I used smaller cups). Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes by which time the redcurrent-sorbet-coloured batter will have morphed into a more sombre, but still juicily tinted sponged - more maroon acryclic than red velvet to be honest. (Nigella's words exactly, I like the way she writes, you can almost here her saying it, just like on TV).
• Leave them to cook on a wire rack and do not ice with the frosting till absolutely cold.

Just look at the intense colour!

The red colour is just so amazing.

Someone sure was attracted to it!

Topped it with Buttery cream-cheese frosting and some sprinkles on top.

for the icing:

500g icing sugar (no need to sift if using a processor)

{I used only 400g because that was all I had, I might even reduce another 50g, 

because it's a tad sweet. It really depends on how you like your sugar.}

125g cream cheese

{I used the whole block of Cream Cheese, only because I thought the recipe said 250g and also I sub-consciously wanted to finish the whole block as I wasn't sure I would use the leftovers soon. But it turned out okay though, nice and creamy.}

125g soft unsalted butter

1 teaspoon cider vinegar or lemon juice

chocolate sprinkles and red sugar for decoration(optional)

• Put the icing sugar into a processor and whizz to remove lumps.
• Add the cream cheese and butter and process to mix. Pour in the cider vinegar (or lemon juice) and process again to make a smooth icing.
• Ice each cupcake, using a teaspoon or small spatula.
• Decorate with chocolate sprinkles and red sugar, or as desired. 

Have a try.

Someone's happy.