Black Sesame Seeds Bun

Made this when I was out of bread. Used the basic sweet bun dough recipe and sprinkle the top with black sesame seeds. Easy to make and my daughter loves it, just the bun not the sesame seeds though.

A Way to Eat French Bread

My hubby took me to an Italian restaurant last week. This restaurant served a kind of bread, looked like french bread but only about 6 inches long. And the way they served it was to present you with a plate of some dried herds and then sprinkle some extra virgin olive oil on it. You ate it by tearing some of the bread and dipped into the olive oil mixture. Oh man, can I say good! I saw people dipping bread in plain extra virgin olive oil on TV, but never really though of eating a bread in that way, you know what I mean? But after this, after I got home I have to make my own since I have lots of dried herbs in my pantry anyway. So, I came out with this mixture (not sure whether it's the same, but it was pretty good).

Simple Dip for French/ Italian bread

A few sprinkles of dried basil
A little salt
A few sprinkles of extra virgin olive oil (EVOO)

1. Place the dried basil and salt on a plate and sprinkle the EVOO on top and serve with the bread.

So easy and yummy as well. And EVOO is good for your heart!! So, do try it and let me know whether you like it or not.

Homemade Ground Chillies in Oil

My friends always praise about my ground chillies and asked me for the recipe. Thus, I would share it here since it's a good spicy chillies.

Evy Latest Pictures & Update

These are her latest pictures. She is growing up, just look at her 6 months old picture on the right, she looks different isn't it? How her facial feature change since birth until now is amazing. When I looked back at her old pictures or video, I was like she looks so different now. And how weird that she has brown hair instead of dark? People said it's the weather here that made her hair brown. She is talking up a storm, keep adding new word or sound as the months go by.

She had her first camping trip over the weekend. Glad to say that she did good, slept through the nights and enjoyed walking around the bushes. Got a few scratches on her knees though because I couldn't keep an eye on her all the times as she loved to walk around. Hmmm...should have put her on long pant but it was sorta hot in the day. Anyway, she loves camping!!

Pandan Kaya

~Yield one medium jar, adapted from Jo's recipe.

Ingredients
----------------
3 large eggs
1 1/3 cup sugar
300 ml thick coconut milk
1/2 tsp. pandan paste

1. In a bowl, lightly beat the eggs. Add sugar and whisk until sugar dissolved. Add coconut milk and pandan paste. Mixed well.

2. Sieve kaya mixture into a stainless steel saucepan (twice) and place on stove top over medium heat and stir occasionally with a whisk until mixture started to thicken. Scoop out any bubbles that formed while whisking. Switched to low heat and stir continously until kaya reached the desired thickness or consistency. Remove from heat and cool completely before storing in a glass jar. Refrigerate afterwards. Kaya will be thicker when it's cool and even more so when refrigerated.

~Will produce a smooth kaya.

Roast Herbs Chicken

Ingredients

1 whole chicken
Salt to taste

(A)
sage powder
dried sage herbs (can omit if you don't have it)
dried rosemary
garlic powder
extra virgin olive oil


Steps

1. Rub the salt all over the chicken, under the skin and in the cavity.

2. In a bowl, add (A) together and mixed well.

3. Next, use a brush to brush (A) mixture all over the chicken, under the skin and in the cavity. Place the chicken on a wire rack or a roasting rack.

4. Bake in preheated 350'F oven for 1 hour & 45 mins or until the thermometer inserted in the thigh area registered 180'F. Cool for 10 mins before chopping into pieces.

Soy Braised Cornish Hen

Cornish Hen is a small chicken. The size of a black chicken.

Ingredients

1 cornish hen
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup water
1/6 cup brown sugar
1 Tbp. oyster sauce
1/8 cup sherry
2 Tbp. dark soy sauce
1/4 tsp. 5 spice powder
1 star anise
1 cinnamon stick
1 tsp. cloves
1 2cm piece of fresh ginger, crushed
1 clove of garlic, crushed

Steps

1. Mixed all ingredients in a large bowl with the hen overnight in the fridge. The next day, pour all the marinade without the hen in a wok and turn on the heat. When boiled, add in the hen and simmer for about 40 mins on each side, covered. Keep adding water if it's dry out. Remove and cool before cutting into pieces.

2. Pour the thicken marinade sauce over the cut out chicken before serving.

Pan Mee

For Chicken Stock:
-2 drumsticks or chicken carcass, some celery, 1 onion, 2 carrots, a piece of ginger and some ikan bilis. Boil this for several hours. Then, drain it to get the clear stock. This produce very sweet stock, no seasoning required.

For Noodle:
-Some flour, one or two eggs and water. Knead until a dough like consistency. Add flour as needed. Roll it flat with a roller and tear it with hand and drop it in a hot boiling water until it float to the top. Dish out and put it in the chicken stock when ready to serve.

For Minced Meat and Mushroom:
-I used ground turkey instead of ground pork, either way is fine. First, marinate the chinese mushroom that has been soaked soft with oyster sauce, chinese rice wine and a little sugar (make sure you squeeze the juices out first). Then, add a little oil in the wok, and stir-fry the ground turkey until cooked and add in the mushroom, stir-well to mix and then add seasoning: oyster sauce, soy sauce, chinese rice wine, a dash of sugar and pepper and lastly a little sesame oil. Stir-well and dish out and set aside.

For Crispy Anchovies (ikan bilis):
-Wash anchovies with water, dry it and then deep-fry in oil until crispy. dish out and set aside.

For Crispy Shallots:
-Sliced the shallots and deep-fry in hot oil until crispy. Set aside. Or put the sliced shallots in a microwave safe bowl and add in enough oil to cover to microwave until brown.

Other side dishes:
-Greens and fish balls. I used collard greens because that's the one I have in the fridge. You can use chai sin, or spinach as subsitute. You can omit fish balls if you don't have it on hand. Add those lastly in the chicken stock when ready to serve.

To assemble:
-Dish out a good amount of noodle in a bowl with some fish balls and greens, and then top it with minced meat and mushroom, add the crispy anchovies on top and lastly the crispy shallots. Serve warm with chili padi. YUM!!

(Serves 2)

Napa Cabbage in Scallop Sauce

Did this a while back. Thought I would share the recipe here. :)

Ingredients

8-10 leaves of napa cabbage, washed and cut into 1 inch wide strips.
2-3 cloves of garlic, chopped.
2 dried scallops, soaked in hot water to soften (about 1 cup), reserved the water.
3 jumbo sea scallops, washed and cut into half.
1 egg white.
salt to taste.
1 tsp. chicken granules.
1 ~ 2 tsp. potato starch / cornstarch mixed in some water.

Steps

1. Heat up some oil in the wok, when hot, add in garlic. Stir until slightly brown, add in the napa cabbage, stir to mix until napa cabbage is soften, add in some salt. Dish out and set on a plate.

2. For the scallop sauce, heat the wok and add in the scallop water with the dried scallops, then add in chicken granules, salt and when boiling, add in the fresh scallops. Let it boil until the scallops are cooked (turned white in color) and turn off the heat and stir in the egg white and potato starch mixture. Stir until thicken in gravy and egg white is cooked, pour on top of the napa cabbage to serve.

Green Tea Buns

I made Green Tea Buns the other day. Just use any basic sweet bun dough recipe and add 1 tsp. of green tea powder into the flours mixture. The green tea flavor is real subtle which is good for those who don't like the smell being too strong. I added mung bean paste as filling just because I have some leftover mung bean paste in the freezer. For stronger green tea flavor, add 2 tsp. green tea powder.

Layers Pandan Konnyaku Jelly

Since I didn't have any fresh fruit in the refrigerator, I decided to make the double layers pandan flavor Konnyaku jelly. I just followed the recipe at the back of Red Man Konnyaku jelly and added pandan essence and pour half of it into the mould. Place the half filled mould into the fridge to speed up the harden process and meanwhile adding some milk into my leftover jelly liquid. Took the mould out and filled the rest of the milk base jelly into the mould, put in the fridge for at least 3 hours before consuming. What can I say except yummy...the texture is just shiok especially on the hot summer day.

Evy is Walking

Finally my sweet little girl is taking off. She started to take steps at 13.5 months and really walking at 14.5 months. Now at 15 months 1 day, she is walking like a pro. It's just too cute to see her walking around the house. When she wanted to be carried and I was half way preparing dinner and ignored her, she would fuss and walk around the house in frustration. Yeah, even a little girl has attitude!

She loves outdoor so I would take her out to the front & backyards everyday just to let her walk around the lawn. Each time I want to go out I would say to her, "Go grab your shoes at the front door and bring it back here because we are going for a walk." and she would go grab her shoes and bring it over. I even asked her to wear her own shoes! She is just too young to get the concept yet but she sure try, like lifting her feet to let me put the shoe in. :) I really amazed at the things she understood. In just a couple of months, she would really start talking and that would be too cute!

Slow Slow Slow...

I'm still waiting for Chong to send the food pictures and he is taking his own sweet time. *Just want to get a cane and whip his ass* No idea what has gone into his head. I told him I want to take my own food pictures and put it in my computer myself but no he said. He said I don't know how to adjust the light setting, blah blah blah...and my pictures will turn out bad. Geez...doesn't he know there is a setting called automatic?? Also, this is MY BLOG, I can do whatever I like with it, eventhough my pictures might not turned out as good, still I can do whatever I want with it. Now, I have to wait for his lazy ass to edit those pictures he took and send it to me before I can post it. And what does he do? Playing his computer games instead of sending me those pictures!! So you know what happen whenever I'm late to post, is his fault!! What is his problem anyway?

Garlic Bread

I made garlic bread this morning. My garlic is too coarse, guess I will have to process it in my food processor next time if I want to make it again (or smash it really well). This bread was so soft when it's still warm from the oven, so good. I made my own garlic topping and not sure whether it's the right way or not. But this was what I did.

Garlic topping for 6 buns
==================
3 cloves of garlic, smashed it with some salt.
2 Tbp. of soften butter
1 tsp. of dried chopped chives

Mixed all together in a bowl. Spoon it in a small zipper bag, cut the tip off one end and squeeze it on top of the dough before baking.

Coconut Jam Bread

My second attempt at bread. Got the inspiration from the cookbook "Make Your Own Bread". Use the basic sweet dough, roll it into a long shape and tie a knot in the middle and fold the ends down. Brush the top with water and press it down in a bowl of crushed coconut and arrange 3 buns together to proof for an hour on a baking sheet. After an hour, put a spoonful of jam in the middle of each bun. It can be any flavour jam (strawberry, blueberry, peach, etc). Then bake in a preheated 375'F oven for 10 minutes.

I didn't do a good job on the jam as you can see. Not sure why my jam spread out instead of staying in the middle looking pretty. :oP

My First Attempt at Making Buns

Finally decided to make sardine buns today using Gina's Basic Sweet Buns recipe. The variation I made: I added 1 tsp. of bread softener in addition to the bread improver. I don't have a stand mixer, so I did everything by hands. I rolled the dough until the butter was incorporated into the dough. And then I rubbed the outside of the dough with extra virgin olive oil before proofing for 5 hours (had to go out). Overall, I'm very satisfy with the result, the bun is soft like it should be. I just need to practise how to put the filling inside the bun and roll it into ball. Still not good at this and some of my filling was leaking out (greedy, wanted to stuff a lot of filling too). I only made 6 sardine buns, the rest I freeze it and will try it with chicken curry filling or plain green tea buns.

Venturing into making bread and buns is not too bad, will experience with more recipe later when I find time again. Thanks Lily for her instant yeast, without that I won't be able to make buns.

We got our Green Card!

After preparing our GC for 4 years, we finally received it. The recent trip back to M'sia was to go for the final phase of the process ~ to get interview at the U.S. Embassy. One week before the interview, we had to go for a medical check up and X-ray in a clinic in KL chosen by the U.S. Embassy. The day before the interview, we went to pick up our result and x-ray which were sealed in an envelop only to be opened by the official.

We were assigned 9am to be there. They took the result and some documents and asked us to come back in the afternoon. The American official would then interview Chong with some questions (I never get interview since I was H4 visa) and then we were finger printed and got a cancelled stamp on our old visa and were asked to be back tomorrow to collect our passport with the new visa stamped. Just an informal interview outside the window like everyone else, no special room whatsoever.

Once we entered the U.S., we had to go to the new immigrant counter and got finger printed again. He told us we will receive our GC in 3-6 months, but in reality we were PR on that day on. We received the congratulation status changed letter in 3 weeks and received our GC in less than a week. So, instead of 3-6 months wait, it's more like less than a month.

What do you know

My computer is fixed!! Chong came home with a new webcam and windows xp software yesterday and fixed it. And the culprit was one of my memory cards died on me. It had been having problem recently like jamming, restarting itself, shutting off when I turned on the webcam and one day just totally dead. What do you know it's the memory card and he told me it was infected by virus....geez....

Anyway, just glad that it's fixed and my parents get to see Evy through webcam every weekend again.

Bak Chang Season

It's the chang/chung season again! The urge to eat chang made me wrapped my own bak chang this year. I didn't get to make it two years back because (1) I was pregnant and (2) had to take care of a baby last year. I think the color was not dark enough, other than that, it tasted pretty good. This time I managed to use all my filling along with the glutinous rice, (all agaration and thus sometimes with leftover filling). I tried to stuff as much filling and wrap the chang as big as I could with the short bamboo leaves that I bought. (greedy! :0P)



Mental Note: Don't ever buy the short nice bamboo leaves again! But buy the long bamboo leaves, wide is a plus. Then, it's a guarentee big chang everytime.

Giant King Crab

While we were dining at one of the Seafood Restaurant in J.B., a reporter from a Chinese Newspaper (Nanyang) came to this restaurant to take some pictures. So, the owner (I guess) asked one of the kitchen chef to come out and hold the crab for the reporter. Chong took this opportunity to take some pictures as well. Heard that this King Crab was imported from U.S. and cost more than RM$1000. Whoa, now I wonder who would want to eat this crab? This is one expensive seafood restaurant, the steamed fish that we ordered cost more than $100.

Like My Pose?

This picture was taken in M'sia. I like this picture a lot so I thought I shared it here. She was trying on a dress that her kuku bought her and while undressing her, we thought why not took a half naked picture of her. Who would know she even pose it for us. LOL!

Food on Air

The food served on Singapore Airline while on the way to Taipei. Chicken Glutinous Rice and can I say YUMMY! Our first meal was stir-fried noodle in shrimps and jumbo scallops (sorry didn't get to take picture), it was delicious. It had chinese meal included in all the selection and of course I chose all the chinese meal and it was all delicious. On the way back to U.S., we stopped at South Korean so the food was mainly Korean food or American food or Indian food. Anyone knows why Indian love Singapore Airline because the majority of the passenger were Indians and they even have a special Indian menu in all the flights. I heard Malaysian Airline serves excellent food as well.

I'm back!

Glad to be back! Sorry Kirsten and Jo about me being unable to meet up with you ladies. My short time in PJ was really rushed and with no vehicle, it's just tough. The heat and humidity were something we were not accustom to anymore, we are really spoiled by the weather here. Poor Evy always had wet hair (covered with sweat) and rosy cheeks (from heat) while back home. She also got sick on the night before we were flying home. She made it through the flights and now resting at home. She hates her medicines and we have a hard time feeding it to her. This is her first time being so sick and we are just an inexperience parents. Hope she will recover soon.

Will be MIA!

I won't be around for a month or so. Flying back to Malaysia on Monday and will stay for roughly a month. Can't wait to eat all the yummy food and kuih. :) Just hope that I won't gain too much weight and would be able to lose it after I got back. :P

It would be great to let the grandparents see Evy for the first time too. I could tell they are getting excited. It has been six years since I last went back, heard that a lot have changed, can't wait to meet my parents and siblings as well.

Kuih Bunga/ Kuih Rose/ Honeycomb Cookies

This was the kuih bunga I made for this year CNY. I used Jo's crispy honeycomb recipe from jodelibakery.netfirms.com. I didn't get to eat much since my husband basically finished all that I had save for ourselves. I brought more than half to a friend's CNY potluck. My husband just ate it like a snack. Next time I would have to double the recipe.

Heart Shape Kuih Bangkit

This was the kuih bangkit I made for Chinese New Year. I used Hugbear's recipe from kitchencapers.net. It was the best kuih bangkit I had ever made and definitely a keeper recipe. The kuih bangkit was crispy when you bite into it and then simply melt in your mouth all at once. Sooo good!

Pineapple Tarts

This is my favorite Pineapple Tarts recipe. I first adapted Amy Beh's recipe but was not satisfied with the result because I wanted a melt in the mouth tart.  So, I played with the recipe couple of times until I got the end result that I was looking for.  The recipe below was the result of my experiments and is the recipe that I used every year since then. The pastry was soft and has the melt in your mouth taste to it.

One Year Old

Hmmm...what's this that mommy gave me? Let's take a bite...yummy!!! Mommy, this is so good, can I have another one? I promise I will sit here quitely if you just give me one after another, okay? *wicked smile*

That is shrimp cracker for those who are wondering!

My First Angku Kuih

Ahhh...finally made some angku kuih just now using the leftover mung bean paste. I used Amy Beh's recipe and it was all right. I just had the trouble to imprint the word in the middle of the angku. I'm going to put it in the refrigerator and pan-fry it tomorrow. Oh, I didn't put enough red coloring as well, as mine turned out to be orange angku. Also the skin texture is a bit too hard at the bottom, like not fully cooked. Don't know what's wrong with that. *sigh*

Evy Latest Picture

This is the most recent picture of Evy. We took it at Lily's house when we were invited to celebrate CNY and her son in-law birthday. My daughter is getting big! *sob sob* And yet I do want her to grow up, mostly to walk so that it will be more fun to bring her to the park, Zoo, and do some outdoor stuff together.

She is a smart baby though. She learned how to wave bye bye, give kisses, blow kisses, claps hands, put thing in box, pick a book for me to read to her and point out the chocolate and cookie in the pictures. Oh yeah, did I tell you chocolate is her favorite. * smile* Oh, she also knows where is her head and nose and throws ball. However, she is still not taken her first step yet. She could stand on her own for awhile, but she is such a careful little girl that she won't practice standing, whenever we put her up to stand alone, she would just sit back down. I was like...how are you going to learn how to walk like this? *hehehe* Hopefully she will be bold enough and start walking soon, as Spring is approaching and I couldn't wait to bring her out exploring a bigger size of the world.

Marble Chocolate Banana Bread

Made this yesterday. Got the inspiration from Food Blog: A Spoonful of Sugar. But I didn't use her recipe, I used my banana cake recipe, cut down on the oil and followed her chocolate chips technique to make marble.

Tau Sar Beng

I made this last weekend using tthksy recipe from kitchencapers.net. It was very good. Note that there will be extra filling leftover, just freeze it for future use.

Recipe courtesy of tthksy:

Dough A
230 g Flour
130 g oil

Dough B
460 g Flour
250 g Oil
180 g water
1 tsp vinegar

Filling (salty savory kind)
180 g oil
10 - 15 shallots - thinly sliced
300 g sugar
3 tsp salt
3 tsp white pepper
600 g mung beans

Method

1. Soak the beans for at least 2 hours, steamed and mashed.
2. Add sugar, salt & white pepper to the mashed beans.
3. Heat oil, fry the shallots till brown and fragrant
4. Pour in the bean mixture. Fry till mixture dry and can make into a ball. Divide filling into 100 pieces.
5. Mix A, Divide into 100 pieces
6. Mix B, Divide into 100 pieces
7. Wrap B around A. flatten it and roll it up swiss roll style. Flatten again and roll it up swiss roll style again.
8. Flatten and wrap the filling in it.
9. Brush with egg wash, top with sesame seeds.
10. Bake at preheated 350 F oven for 10-15 mins.

This is the modification from Florence,
She made half portion of the recipe and got 40 pieces.

Dough A = 4g or slightly less than 1/2 tsp
Dough B = 12g Filling = 16g
Dough A reduced oil from 130g to 115g (easier to handle).
Dough B reduced oil from 250g to 220g.

Her pastry skin is thin but if you like thicker pastry skin you can try 5g of dough A with 15g of dough B and 15g - 16g of filling. She did not make any changes to the filling and the filling is very nice.

She bake for 20 minutes at 175C in the middle rack then 10 minutes at 200C on the upper rack just to get the nice golden colour. ** This is for her oven only. Please double check your own oven temperature. **