春节愉快,万事如意!

GONG XI FA CAI!!

My First Award!!

It was a hectic weekend which I got nothing accomplished by went to ER on Sunday, admitted to the hospital and spend my weekend and monday in the hospital. Anyway, I felt so much better now and return to work this morning checking my email and found out I got an award from LCOM!!


Yay.. my first award ever! Thanks LCOM for giving this award to me. You truly brighten my week!

I would like to pass this to my friend Home Sweet Home

Pandan Sponge Cake

I love pandan cake and have wanted try make pandan chiffon cake forever but just never get the chance to do it. Originally I was planning to bake a pandan layer cake for my birthday but plan changed, didn’t really get to bake anything but end up with a mini store bought cake to share with my family. Still tempting to try the panda layer cake until I found this simple recipe from KC forum.

The cake is quite moist, soft and spongy. This is perfect to share with your friend who are lactose intolerance because it doesn't content any butter or milk. However, it has a very high contain of eggs. 8 eggs or more for the cake in this size. Don't think this something you want to eat everyday for health reason :)

This recipe is very simple and straight forward. The only downside is you have to use Sponge Cake Mix which I don’t think you can get it anyway in US. I brought the cake mix from Malaysia last Nov and I am so glad that I did.

Ingredients:

• 435g sponge cake mix
• 400g eggs ( about 8 eggs)
• 100g coconut milk
• 2 tsp sponge gel (ovalette)
• 1 tsp pandan paste
• PAM to coat the cake pan

Method:

• Preheat oven to 360F
• Grease a aluminum foil or parchment paper lined 10" cake pan with PAM
• Using a cake mixer, beat all the ingredients together on low for 1 minute.
• Turn to high and beat for another 12 minutes till cake mix is foam-like and very very thick.
• Pour into cake pan.
• Put the cake pan on a baking tray filled with about 1 cm of water. (This is the baine marie; culinary technical terms)
• Bake in the preheated oven for 50 minutes to an hour
• After cake is done, do not remove the cake from the oven immediately but leave the oven door slightly ajar and allow cooling for 15 to 20 mins before remove from the oven.

Japanese Soy Sauce Chicken

Found this interesting recipe from KC forum and tried it last week. The outcome is delicious especially the sauce. Besides the soy sauce flavor, it also contain the sweetness and rich flavor from the balsamic vinegar. I could be a bit bias because I love balsamic vinegar on everything. From savory dish to sweet dessert.

For this dish I used the lightly aged balsamic vinegar rather the thicken version which is best use for salad and dessert. I made couple modifications the the original recipe. I marinated the chicken ahead of time and remove the chicken from the pot once it looks tender to avoid overcook the meat. This is my adapted version.

Ingredients:

• 8 chicken drumsticks
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1/3 cup soy sauce
• 2 1/2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 clove garlic, peeled and bruised
• 2 dried hot chili pepper

Method:

• Marinate the chicken overnight with water, balsamic vinegar, soy sauce and sugar.
• Place all the ingredients in a saucepan over a high heat.
  
• Bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer for about 20 minutes.
  
• Increase the heat, turning the drumsticks frequently in the sauce, and cook until the drumstick is tender.
• Remove the drumstick and continue cook the liquid until it has reduced to a sticky glaze.
• Arrange the chicken on a serving platter and spoon the glaze over.

Whole Wheat Milk Loaf

This is my bread of the week- Whole Wheat Milk Loaf recipe taken from my previous Milk Loaf with minor adjustment.
Besides replacing the gluten flour with whole wheat flour, I also use the sweet dough function instead of the basic loaf function to get a lighter crust
The loaf come out perfect as I expected except it was almost half size smaller than the white bread. I was thinking maybe I should increase the ingredients to 1.5 more on my next loaf but this loaf is seriously quite fulfilling because of its' rich and dense texture. 2 slices of bread can actually stop me from snacking until my lunch time.
Just want to share with you my Saturday morning breakfast. Whole wheat kaya toast with a cup of white coffee. oo. wait.. It was 1/2 cup of white coffee. Try to avoid caffeine if possible but sometime I just need some coffee to get my day started.

Lettuce wrap with Ground Turkey

Since I have some lettuce head and ground turkey in my fridge, I really want to try this healthy version of lettuce wrapped from Steamy Kitchen. Unfortunately, I totally forgotten about the green apple when I was out for my groceries shopping.As a result, this is what I end up with Asian Lettuce Cups with Ground Turkey & Green Apple. I replaced the apple with 1/2 carrot and omitted the fried mung bean noodle.

Ingredients: (click here for original recipe)

• 1 lb ground turkey
• 1 tsp minced garlic
• 1/2 tsp grated ginger
• 1/2 orange bell
• 1/2 carrot
  
• 2 scallions
• 1/2 yellow bell
• 1.5 tbsp Hoisin Sauce
  
• 1 tsp soy sauce
  
• 1/2 tsp sesame oil
• 1 tsp rice wine vinegar
• 1/4 tsp ground pepper

Method:

• Cut all the veggie into cube size.
• Heat pan on high heat with cooking oil. Add ground turkey and fry until 80% done. With spatula, make room in the center of pan to fry the aromatics. Just push the meat out of the way. Add a touch more cooking oil if needed. Fry garlic, ginger, scallions until fragrant, about 10 seconds.
  
• Add bell peppers and carrots Cook just a minute until vegetables are slightly softened.
  
• Add sauce ingredients. Mix well and heat through.
• Serve with lettuce cups, fried shallot and shaved carrots.

I really like the taste of the wrap, you don't really need any dipping sauce to add on like the one you get from PF Chang. The only sauce you need to kick it up a notch is probably chilies sauce is what Steamy Kitchen call it a rooster sauce. Definately thinking of giving it another try with the green apple.

Dried Oyster and Chicken Porridge

Wanted to cook something simple for another lazy Sunday afternoon and thought of the dried oyster and roast pork hock porridge my aunt used cook in Malaysia. When I was young, I don't really the dried oyster flavor except this porridge. Since I wasn't able to get the roasted pork hock, I replaced the roasted pork hock with chicken breast to make it more healthy and less oily.


Ingredients:

• * Rice
• * Water
• * Dried Oyster
• * Chicken breast
• * Soy sauce and pepper for marinate
• * Salt to taste

Method:

• I marinated my chicken breast with some soy sauce and pepper for about 30 minutes and put the remaining ingredient into my rice cooker.
• Select porridge function.
• Serve with some green onions and diced century egg
  

Wake up with Light and Fluffy Pancakes

The All You Can Eat Pancakes promotion is going on at IHOP right now and I was considering going there for breakfast during the weekend. After some deep thought, I started to wonder how many pancakes can I eat at 1 time? Is it really a good deal? After all, I don't want to make myself look like a giant pancakes when leaving the restaurant. So I decided to whip up a small batch of pancakes at home for myself and my family of course, just to satisfy my craving and dream.

This recipe was adapted from Florence, Since I don't any buttermilk at home, i uses 2% fresh milk and while i am typing, i just realized i forgot to add the oil to my batter. Oh well.. it still taste good in my opinion without the oil.

Ingredients: (Click here for the original version)

• 120g self-rising flour
• 1/8 tsp baking soda
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 25g sugar
• 190ml 2% milk
• 1 egg
• 1/4 tsp vanilla essence
• 4 tbsp oil
  
• PAM to coat the pan
• Blueberries for topping ( optional)

Method:

• Mixed all ingredients into a mixing bowl and whisk until the batter is smooth
• Used a non-stick pan, spray a thin layer of PAM on a medium heat
• Pour in desired amount of batter or i used 1/4 size cup over the pan and let it cook pancakes until the bubbles appear on it. You can add any topping or fruit at this point before turning the pancakes over
  
• Turn the pancakes over and cook until brown
  
• I serve mine with Apricot syrup and butter. Yum Yum..
  

This is my kiddie version for Aidan. 1/2 size smaller then the adult version, no syrup but with fresh blueberries and a touch of butter. He love it so much that he actually finish 4 of the pancakes and still asking for MORE!

Simple Mixed Veggies Stir-fry with Fishball

I have some left over napa cabbage, bean sprout and carrot sitting in my fridge for almost 1 week now, don't know what to do with them. While hubby was preparing the napa cabbage for his dish, suddenly though of the idea of combining all the left over with some cellophane noodle and fish ball. The outcome was quite delicious in my opinion. I really like veggie combination of this dish. Some crunchiness from the bean spout and the natural sweetness from the cabbage, carrot and fish ball. Yum yum.. definitely a keeper.

Kaya (Coconut Jam)

Hmm.. Kaya, one of the most famous bread spread in Malaysia. In Ipoh, you can find most of the old style Kopitiam serving homemade kaya toast with Ipoh white coffee in the morning especially at the old town area. I believe it is now become one of the tradition where you can find kaya toast in every Kopitiam in Malaysia.
Kaya reminded me a lot of old time memory. Still remember that my mom used to make kaya all the time when we were teen. She used to prepare kaya toast as our breakfast before we go to school in the early morning. To us, mommy's homemode kaya is the best. Of course during her era, making kaya was not as easy as today. I still remembered that my mom's kaya was cook using the double boiler with fresh ingredients on the charcoal burner. Fresh ingredients mean fresh squeeze coconut milk with the egg from my mom's little chicken farm. Can you imagine how good that is?
In my mind, cooking kaya is such a hassle work and I would never imagine cooking my own kaya until I found blogs talking about cooking kaya with bread machine, slow cooker or even the modern style rice cooking with multifunction. Now that I am able bake some fresh bread for my family, next goal will be cooking a nice kaya to eat with the lovely loaf.

Here's the recipe I used where from LCOM, adapted from Jo's deli.


Ingredients:

• 3 large eggs
• 1 1/3 cup sugar
• 300 ml thick coconut milk
• 1/2 tsp. clear pandan paste ( you can use any green pandan paste as well)

Method:

• In a bowl, lightly beat the eggs until mix well
• Put everything including add into bread machine
• Set the machine to Jam function and let it do the rest of the job
• The kaya will not look smooth after the cooking from the machine. Pour the kaya to a blender and blend until smooth
  

* When fresh from the blender, the kaya may not look as thick. Don't worry, it will get thicker as it cold down.

Since i was using the clear pandan flavor as oppose to the green pandan paste, I was surprise to see that the kaya actually looks quite greenish. Now, after storing it in the fridge, the kaya is now look more yellowish which is what i expect.

If i remember correctly, the brownish color from the traditional kaya were come from the caramel where you will have to prepare right before the kaya is ready and stir the hot caramel into the kaya mixture until well mix. Not only it gave the brownish color of the kaya but it also add extra caramel kick to it. I was so tempting to try the caramel steps but afraid i will mess up the whole kaya without consult to my mom. Until then, this is definitely one great recipe to keep.
aahh.. who want some fresh bake milk loaf with some kaya and butter on it? Me!! Now that I pass my glucose test.. I can finally indulge my lovely loaf and kaya without any guilt or worry :)