Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Edda's Dinner Plate



Stir-fry Chinese green with carrot, Pork Rendang (pork dry curry), and Japanese rice ball with filling (onigiri).




Got this idea from Peony and coincidently I have the pork floss and furikake and the Japanese rice mold from D. So, wait no further, I made this for my daughters. Evy didn't want hers with furikake so I omitted that for her. They loved it so much that they wanted this for lunch tomorrow as well. Thanks Peony & D! :)

Method:

Press some warm rice into the mold, add a layer of pork floss, top with more warm rice, use the cover provided by the mold to close it, press slightly. Turn it over and push the rice out from the hole. Decorate the top of the rice ball with some Furikake. Alternately, you can shape the rice ball by hands and use less filling.

Monday, July 14, 2008

Use of Leftovers 1: Cucumber Rojak



This is the leftovers from the satay dinner the other day. Some homemade compressed rice, tiny bit of shallots and a small bowl of cut cucumbers. For the cucumber, it was fairly easy to turn it into another dish of it's own. Scroll down to see what I did with it.



I turned it into a cold and refreshing cucumber rojak with the ready made CKC satay sauce. I always have some toasted ground peanuts and sesame seeds in my freezer. So making this dish is as easy as 123. I do love to store some ready made rojak sauce in my pantry just in case I have a craving or some leftover cucumbers. Of course you can now order this sauce at the convenience of your home, in front of your computer at MyTasteOfAsia.com.

Stay tuned to see how I transform the compressed rice and shallots into! Part 2 coming up!

Saturday, July 12, 2008

The Triangle Number Under Your Water Bottle

Are you guys aware that the triangle number under your water bottle actually means something? It tells us what type of material the plastic bottle was made of. And the recent studies suggested that the most popular hard, clear and durable plastic bottle that we used was made of Polycarbonate and one of the key components of this is the endocrine-disrupting bisphenol-A (BPA). BPA can leach into the liquid and making the water toxic and can cause breast cancer in women or prostate cancer in men and some other illnesses. This bottle has numbered (3), (6) or (7) in the triangle. So, I would advice all my friends and family members to stop using any water bottle that has a number (3,6,7) under the bottle. The most common plastic bottle that we have seen everywhere has a number (7) in the triangle. I just threw away mine, all six of them. I know this bottle looks nice but it can kill also!

I guess the best re-usable water bottle would be one made from stainless steel as they don't leach any chemicals. But it can be expensive. The other is aluminum as it is BPA free and very reasonably priced. Other alternative is to look for water bottles that contained number (2) (high-density polyethylene), (4) (low-density polyethylene) and (5) (polypropylene) if it is plastic made.

If not, just drink from the glass or coffee cup. Use glasses while at home and only use the plastic water bottles with number (2), (4) and (5) in the triangle while going out. Number (1) water plastic bottle is safe to use but it was not meant to be re-used.


For updated information, click here. Looks like water bottle number (1) is safe for one time and repeated use, as long as you wash it with soap and dry it nicely each time after use.

Pandan Kuih Bahulu (or Kuih Bahlu)



I bought a light non-stick kuih bahlu pan at my recent trip back in Malaysia. This was not the traditional heavy kuih bahlu pan because I certainly wouldn't want to carry those. Since I got the pan, I wanted to test out the pan and I found the kuih bahlu recipe at Rainbows. I added pandan paste into mine because I was curious of how it would taste like. In my first batch, I sprayed the pan with some butter spray and all the pattern disappeared. So, I learned a lesson there. I didn't spray on my second batch and above was what I got. The pattern was not as clear cut because the indentation in the pan was not deep compared the the traditional mold.

Since I have not eaten any store-bought kuih bahlu or any kuih bahlu made with the mold for ages, I couldn't tell how this was. Thus I purposely made this to bring to my friend's house and let them be the judges. According to the hubby, it's better than store-bought and it was pretty good, he said the store-bought one was really dry. According to the wife, it's still a bit dry compared to the one her MIL made. I thought it was kind of chewy. How is it supposed to taste like huh?

Update: I did some research on the web and the texture of kuih bahulu is supposed to be dry, crispy outside and slightly spongy inside and best eaten with coffee/tea because of it's dry texture.


Friday, July 11, 2008

YUM - YUM Blog Award




I would love to thanks My Kitchen Snippets for giving me this YUM - YUM blog award. It was so sweet of her and I really appreciated it. I would love to pass it to the YUM-YUM blogs below:

Soy and Pepper
Kedai Hamburg
The Adventure of my cooking diary
Rainbows

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Satay Dinner Again!



While replying to Cooking Ninja regarding my satay sauce and compressed rice, Evy walked by and saw the satay chicken. She loved satay chicken and of course requested that I make it for her. I was salivating looking at the pictures and reminiscing how good the satay sauce taste, so I told her I will make satay for dinner the next day.


Yummy and moist satay chicken! Help yourself ya!


My homemade compressed rice, seedless cucumber and shallot.


Peanut satay sauce. Dipping sauce for the satay chicken and accompaniment.



And guess what I ended out using? The Rasaku satay marinade & sauce mix!! I was pleasantly surprised with this brand because I was quite skeptical when I saw the satay sauce that came in the packet. It was in powder form and all I needed to add was water and oil. I was contemplating of making my own sauce or using this powder and decided to give it a try. The sauce looked okay when thicken, so I did a taste test and it was not too bad. But I wanted more flavor out of it and creamier in texture, so I added some creamy peanut butter and toasted ground peanuts into the sauce. Now it looked really good and tasted superb. I won't be hesitating in buying this brand again, just for convenience and it's authenticity in taste. If you want to try it too, you can buy it online at MyTasteOfAsia.com. I just checked the website and now this paste is on sales for $1.95! Grab it before it's gone!