Short-Cut Chicken Satay

It has been donkey years ago since I last made any satay because I considered this dish very troublesome. Furthermore, I always get to eat it at my friend A's house and the M'sian restaurant here so I don't really feel like making it myself. But then at a party recently, I got to learn a simple satay sauce recipe from M which got me interested in making satay again. Now I got this short-cut satay peanut sauce recipe, I just have to create my short-cut satay meat marinade for my chicken.



Serving my moist satay chicken (using chicken breasts) with rice cake and seedless cucumber.



Short-cut and delicious satay peanut sauce. Look at the coconut oil oozing out. M, thanks for the recipe! It's a keeper! :)


Click below for easy and delicious satay peanut sauce recipe:

Gula Melaka Sago and Pandan Jelly

Since we all love sago, I decided to make sago jelly with my leftover gula Melaka syrup and evaporated milk from making the ice-kacang. I added Pandan paste in the milk portion to make it more fragrant.



It turned out pretty good. A nice dessert for tea time and after dinner.

Homemade Ais-Kacang

Homemade red beans, canned palm seeds ("Attap Chee"), creamy corns and green liang fun. Note: I found canned red beans for dessert topping as well but very expensive at $4 a canned! So, decided to make my own.


With shave ice on top.


With evaporated milk and gula melaka syrup and ready to serve!


This is the automatic shave ice maker for home use, by Hawai Ice.

Now we can make our own ais-kacang especially if you live in an area where no M'sian/S'porean restaurants are serving ais-kacang and you have a craving for it. :0)

For those who don't know, ais-kacang is a shave ice dessert that served in M'sia and S'pore. The direct translation of this is red bean ice also known as ABC (Air Batu Campur). It used to be just beans and ice but these days a lot of ingredients have been added. Some even served with special topping such as ice-cream, chocolate syrup or pureed durian. In a warm tropical climate such as M'sia/S'pore, a bowl of this delicious ais-kacang definitely is a great way to cool down the body.

Coagulated Milk

I saw this dessert some time back and decided to give it a try. Frankly, I never tasted it before and was wondering how does it tasted like. I found the recipe at Leisure Cat and it was fairly easy (I tweak my method a little). The ginger juice is used to coagulate the milk and thus this dessert is smooth, very soft and tasted of ginger (sorta like ginger flavored milk).

Ingredients:

8 ounce (220ml) whole milk

1 Tbp. ginger juice

1 tsp. sugar (1 tsp. more for sweeter taste)

Method:

1. Prepare ginger juice by zesting the ginger and squeeze out the juice, strained.

2. Microwave the milk for 1 min 25 seconds. Add in sugar and stir to dissolve. Then, take another cup and pour it back and forth for 10 times to let the air in (Indian teh tarik style, but not too high, wondering whether I can omit this step?).

3. Put 1 Tbp. of ginger juice in a bowl, stir well before pouring in the milk from 2. Then, leave it and don't touch the milk for 3 mins. It should be set after that and serve immediately.

Note: Don't let it sit out for too long because the ginger will become too overpowering.

Fried Seaweed Crackers

No idea what this cracker is called, so I just named it like it is. This cracker normally can be found during Chinese New Year, sold along side all the other CNY cookies.

I saw a deep fried pastry roll recipe at a Chinese forum and it just provided me with the idea of making this. The method is the same, just that I have added a sheet of seaweed on top and roll it together. I cut it diagonally instead of straight down. It sure produces a nicer effect and looks like those sold in Malaysia.

This is a delicious snack that is hard to stop at just a few. Now you can make it yourself and don't have to wait til CNY to eat it. What's more, it's so easy to make! :)

Fried Cutterfish Balls on a Stick

I made something familiar in the supermarket and pasar malam (night market) back home. Usually sold for $1 each and it comes in fish balls, cutterfish balls and shrimp balls.

This snack is super easy to make. Just buy a package of DoDo cutterfish balls (of course you can choose any variety you like), thaw it until soft and deep-fry it in medium hot oil until golden brown. Skewer them into a satay stick and serve with Thai sweet chilli sauce. Kids friendly as well.