Rendang puff

We've always been a big fan of curry puff and I've always made them with a simple version of chicken curry. This time round, the smart Alec suggested that I made it with the beef rendang that we have frozen from our last Nasi Lemak rendezvous. I gotta admit I was sceptical at first and gave him a dirty look at his suggestion. But then the idea can't be bad since it saves me the work of having to cook the filling. All I had to do was to buy some puff pastry (we got Edmond's reduced fat and its really good with less fat) and dice some hard boiled eggs and wrap up those little babies. Follow the baking instructions that comes with the pastry and that's it.
The result was FANTABULOUS!!! I'd go for this anytime as opposed to our firm favourite of chicken curry puff, sorry Chicky, this round goes to Beef Rendang Puff!

Stir Fry Asparagus with scallops

Finally, I have some greens to post in my blog! After all veges are the most uninteresting food to write about for me that is. This is a simple quick stir fry dish which is quite yummy for those who loves asparagus and/or scallops.

Some scallops-Lightly pan fried with some oil

Asparagus

Minced garlic-1 tsp

Chicken granules-1tsp

A dash of soya sauce

A dash of chinese cooking wine

1 tsp of sugar

Heat some oil and saute garlic till browned and add in the asparagus and all the seasonings. Add about 1/4 cup of water and cover wok and leave to simmer. Depending on the asparagus age, the older it is, the longer you'd have to cook it. When its almost done, add in the scallops and give it a good toss and yup its ready! For a good stir fry vege dish, i think the most important is 'wok hei' meaning lots of heat from the wok, so if you have a cooking hob that gives big flames, I'd say 80% of the battle has been won :)

Cockels in tauchu sauce

This isn't exactly the same type of cockles we get in Malaysia, but i miss cockles so anything named cockles is good enough for me to try.

Ingredients:

1 kg of live cockles

1 inch ginger

6 garlic cloves minced

spring onions

Big red chilli's

2 tbsp of taucu

2 tbsp of sugar

2 tbsp of sugar

2 tbsp of Chinese cooking wine

Corn flour water

Heat up some oil in the wok till smoking, add in ginger and garlic and saute till fragrant. Add in the cockles and seasoning and some water enough to simmer the cockles, cover wok and let it cook till all the cockles have opened up. These took me about 8 minutes, stubborn cockles. Dish up the cockle without the sauce first so that it doesn't overcook, thicken the sauce with corn flour water and add in the chopped spring onions and chills and dish up together with the cockles. X'cuse me presentation, should have cleaned the sides of the plate hehe..

Sweet & sour crab

I've never cooked crabs in my life, let alone thought that I'd ever cook it. I promised to make my parents dinner for their 32nd anniversary so i had to make something nice, it was going to be crab meat in tauhu at first but i couldn't find any ready crab meat and there were some mud crabs for sale, so i got some and decided to make this dish.

Quick flip through the Hawkers fare cook book to check on the ingredients for this dish, turned out simple enough. Most recipes calls for deep frying of the crabs before cooking, but i flagged that cause its too messy and unhealthy since we're so upping the cholesterol factor in this dinner.

Ingredients:-

Crabs-800gm

Ginger julienned - about 1 inch

6 cloves garlic

2 big red chilli's

4 chili padi-flag this if you're not into hot food

4 tbsp of diced spring onions

4tbsp of tomato sauce

3 tbsp of chili sauce

2 tbsp vinegar

1 tbsp soy sauce

2 tbsp sugar or to taste

1 tsp salt

1 egg

corn flour water

water to simmer

Heat some oil till smoking hot in the wok and then add in ginger, garlic, chilli's, spring onions and saute till fragrant. Add in crabs and all the seasonings and some water enough to simmer the crabs in, cover wok and let it cook for 4 minutes. Give it a taste and adjust to your liking, if you desire it to be more sour, add in more tomato sauce/vinegar. Thicken with corn flour water and turn off flames before adding in the beaten egg, give it a good stir. By turning off the flame before adding in the egg, this will ensure that the egg's not overcooked and it'll provide the sauce with a smooth silky finish. Enjoy my steaming hot Sweet Sour crabs!

Pork Chop

Here's a quick dinner idea! Pork chop that's pre-marinated during the weekends and chucked onto a grill/pan fried on a weekday. I normally have this with packed salads that requires no washing or cutting, but since mum was here to help with the preparatory work, we had stir-fried cabbage with carrots as our sides. Carb was omitted since everyone's been complaining that they're packing on weight!

Here's what i marinated my chops with(about 6 pieces):

-Sesame oil enough to coat ever piece of chop

-Salt rubbed onto every piece

-A big dash of Chinese cooking wine

-Ginger juice - about 2-3 tbsp

-Some cracked black pepper

I normally don't make sauces to go with my chops but my dad is strictly on to sauces when it comes to meat, so i made a quickie sauce with an onion, flour, chicken granules, sugar and soy sauce. Just heat up some oil and add in the onions and fry for 2-3 minutes before adding in plain flour, just enough to lightly coat all the onions, give it a good toss before adding in water. Leave it to simmer and add in the chicken granules to taste. Sugar gives a little balance to the savouriness of the dish, but i usually go sparingly like 2 tsp and a dash of soy sauce. Soy sauce is more for the color here though :)

Hokkien fried noddles

Aside from achieving a near black color and having lard in my noodles, this is as authentic as I could get towards this Malaysian fare of ours. I thought it tasted really authentic and it was a great quick and easy meal to have.
Here's what you need:-
A packet of yellow noodles
Some 'choy sum'
Prawns
Pork slices - marinated with soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil, oyster sauce and some corn starch
Pork liver

For the sauce:
Sufficient dark soy sauce to achieve the desired color that you want for your noodles
Chicken granules/chicken stock -to taste
A dose of sugar
A dash of light soy sauce
A dash of sesame oil
Some chinese cooking wine-nothing more than 2-3 tbsp

Method:
Heat up some oil and fragrant some chopped garlic till it turns brown and then add water/chicken stock to the wok (if you use water, then add in chicken granules). Once it comes to a simmer, add in the noodles and let it cook till its soft to your liking, when almost done, add in the pork & veges, leave it to simmer for about 3minutes before adding in the liver and lastly the prawns. Once prawns been added, don't cook for more than 3 minutes otherwise the liver and prawns will be overcooked. Serve HOT and best with Sambal! Yummmmm

Cotton Spongecake

The baking bug bit me again, so i had to make something! I chance upon Baking mum's blog and was thrilled to find this recipe. I've never baked a sponge cake before but i've always loved good sponge cake, so I decided to try it out. It turned out FAB!!! Best texture i've ever had from a sponge cake, was so so cottony soft it feels dreamy when you eat it.

Just to share my experience on this cake, the cake comes out from the oven looking absolutely fabulous but sinks a little once it cools down, here's a picture for comparison. Had some cream in the fridge which is about to expire so i had it whipped up with some frozen raspberries and sugar to sandwiched my cake. I covered the whole cake with cream in a rustic manner (no effort home food for me)

The downside to creaming this cake is the cream gets too heavy for the cake once its cut and it wouldn't keep especially if you had frozen fruits in it cause it tends to get watery. Best consumed within the day!