After enjoyed all the good food on Christmas parties, my body does not feel right.Maybe we have eaten too much meat- turkey perhaps? ;PSo I have decided to cook up the macrobiotic dishes. Here come the cold soba noodles. Actually I love vegetarian food. My diet consists of 80% vegetable & carbohydrate (veggie, fruits, rice, tofu), V.S 20% of meat (fish, chicken,Egg & pork only).This cold soba noodles are lean & healthy. Of course the taste is very mild.
Cold soba noodle:Cook the soba noodle according to the packet instruction & cool it in the fridge for at least 15min. Or use the ice cube to cool down the noodles. Then, assemble it as per what you see in the pictures.
This is most probably one of the best baked salted chickens that we have had for the past few years.Aun Kheng Lim Ipoh Salted chicken is really delicious. I guess that is because they use more high quality kampung chicken & Chinese herbs (dong guai) etc. The chicken is baked to perfection & it was so delicious. I would strongly recommend whoever pass by Ipoh should stop by & get one of those chicken. You will not regret it.
Pls check on the pictures for the address of the shop. By the way, the chicken is quite small, it is roughly about 2-3 serving for one chicken. You might need to buy more than one chicken if you have a big family.
When I do not have enough time to prepare soup, I always make this “super fast” soup for my 5 years old. She is a typical Chinese, she must have soup for dinner.Chinese soup is categorized as clear soup. It is very different from the creamy & thick mushroom/pumpkin soup. It normally needs to simmer for at least 4 hours on slow heat.
The weekend is always very busy. All the cleaning up …washing…cooking…grocery shopping etc… I do forget to prepare the soup sometimes. However, I have some tricks up my sleeves.The Japanese Miso soup comes to the rescue. It is so easy & can be done in 10 minutes.
Basic Recipies ( For 2-3 serving)
3 tbsp miso paste
3g Japanese or Korean wakame
1 block organic soft tofu
5g spring onion
600cc water
For richer soup you can add these alternative materials:
Add meat: scallop /crab/ prawn/clamp (la-la)/white fish slice
Add more veggie: cabbage/potato/ carrot/ radish
Method:
Boil water, Add tofu (cut), Add additional ingredient of your choice, Sprinkle wakame into the soup,Add miso paste into the soup, Turn off heat & add spring onion.
It is Christmas.Good food must share with good friends. I have made 2 dozens of these gorgeous cupcakes to share with my family, friends or neighbors this coming Christmas. Wish all of you a very Merry Christmas & Happy New Year ahead. :)
Since 2007, I have always wanted to learn from scratch from a sifu on cake decorating. It is interesting to know how to pipe a proper flower, how to manage the fondant, how to arrange a 3 tiered wedding cakes, how to cakes for any events eg. kid’s birthday, wedding, party, anniversary, Christmas….etc.
Most of the time, I only decorate my homemade cake with simple icing & piping flowers. Personally, I don’t really like to EAT icing because it is too sweet for me. But my daughter love cake with icing so much. I need to admit that sometime with a bit of icing, the cake taste better. It protects the cake & keeps it moist. Besides that, it looks awesome.
My hubby was telling me that the cakes always taste good but look kind of normal or plain. It doesn’t have the “wow” impression. When the time was right, I managed to join an intensive cake decorating class for 3 days to pick up all the skill. It cost about RM2K ++ which is quite expensive if you compared with a 6days 5 night trips to Korea. Furthermore, it is a 3days torturing intensive course.
Let me briefly explain the meaning of an intensive course, this means after the training, you need to rest for at least 3 days for your body to resume normal. The instructors were pretty kind to us on the 1st day (only). We started at 10am, finish at 6.30pm (30 minutes lunch break) with all the muscle pains that we have endured due to squeezing stiff icing for piping flower. The 2nd & 3rd day, we started at 9.30am & finish at 8.00pm. Nonstopof squeezing flowers, rolling fondant, piping borders, piping figures etc. Don’t forget all the nonstop washing- wash piping bag, wash all the tools after change color every times, wash towels. From the 2nd day onward, you don’t feel your right arm & your legs are so painful because of standing for so long. You will look like a zombie from 2nd days onwards. BTW, we only have a 10-15 minutes breaks for lunch for both days. Yeah.. now that I recalled there is a 5 minutes tea break in the afternoon but I don’t see anybody eating it.
Pressure was high because we need to make LOTS of flower for the 3 tiered wedding cakes. Otherwise, you can't graduate. I feel so thankful on the last days. It will be over soon. Nonstop of working on the flowers, knead fondant, mixing colors, rolling, piping,washing….finally my wedding cake was done. I was GLAD.
My hubby helped to move the 3 tiered cakes back home for photographing. My dotter broke some the delicate decoration (bottom) by poking her little fingers on the beautiful cakes. She kept asking me if she can eat the cake. She can’t because it was a dummy cake. She wasn’t very happy & makes a big fuss. She is fine only after I promised that I will make her a cake the next day.
Thank goodness yesterday has become history. Finally.
With so many K-drama and K-pop in TV nowadays (not to mention a free flow of Korean culture exposure on KBS via Astro), it is difficult to not to try out Korean recipes, and having a hubby that practically go nuts over fried rice, I decided to make a Kim Chi fried rice, which is a common item served in most Korean restaurant.
My fried rice connoisseur gave me a 5 star rating on this, (probably biased because he is my husband, or he had yet to taste the real stuff in Seoul lolz).
It is December, there are a lots of holidays fall in this month. It's a joyful month because of Christmas celebration, parties, new year celebration, Chinese Dong Zhi....etc It means there will be a lot of cooking need to be done because the small little one is at home. She is not a picky or fussy eater. She eat almost anything but she is very demanding. She will tell me if the food is not tasty.
I admit that I do love to eat out sometime. But, there are time when I need to scratch my head to think where to eat...what to eat.....etc. My hubby & I will just cook up some very simple dishes for lunch & dinner. When come to cooking, I always eyeball the measurement. I will list the ingredients of the recipes & you can use it as a reference.
Steam Read Snapper Recipies: Tauchu, Chili Padi, soya sauce, ginger, oil, spring onion, salt & pepper.
Pan Fried Mince pork patties with Thai Basil. Simple yet delicious. Recipes: Mince pork, 1 egg, corn flour, pepper, salt & pepper, ginger & spring onion.
Or just simple fried fish is good enough. Besides, simple steam Hainanese chicken is good. I use free range chicken, the pics looks a bit odd because I have removed the skin. Not forgetting some pastry for the tea time. I also make some mini carrot cupcake for her. She loves the spiced cupcakes These are the collection of my food diary for the holidays.
Today, I can't agree more that Foh Sum Ipoh Dim Sum probably serves the best dim sum in Malaysia. A Ipoh friend told me that, Foh Sum initially was good in the 90s, then the quality & service start to deteriorated, then improved again. I guess some of the famous restaurant will have to go through this cycle. As of my visit to Foh Sum today, their dim sum was good and fresh, and the speed of service is excellent (dimsum is no fun when orders are served with lots of delays)
Now let me explain why IMHO that Foh Sum probably serves the best dimsum in Malaysia (and I ain't bragging because I have eaten dimsum in HK), with my 3 step tests. My first check (probably the most important test) is always the steam items, and my favorite test is the dimsum and hargau (shrimp dumpling) test, check the skin and size, inferior dimsum have very thick skin and low quality fillings, i.e. small and not fresh shrimps, which makes the dining experience ala eating powder dough.
Next observation, is how firm is the skin, inferior dimsum usually have soggy skin that is over steamed, and the steam items from both of these tests, have firm skin that does not break easily and it's not too thick that overwhelm the contents. In my dimsum dining experience, if any dimsum restaurant fails the steam item test, you can very much eat the pau and don't bother to return.
Test 2, having pass the steam item test, the next test is the fried items test which is fairly easy to spot. Always check how much oil residue, and remember, you are there to eat the food, not the oil residue. Just put the items on a piece of tissue paper and the result is self explanatory. Should the fried stuff have very little residue, it is good stuff, which means that, the kitchen hand, have the items fried at an optimum temperature and duration, which many chefs will agree that, optimum temperature and duration brings the best out of any fried items, needless to say Foh Sum passes with flying colors.
For the final test, check the "unique offering" items, ask the waiter what is their specialty and let her do her selling. This test will allow the chefs to demonstrate their creative skills. While this test is subjective, but it is also self explanatory, if the items are really unique, not only it taste good, you won't find it elsewhere and it will keep you puzzled on how on earth it was done. For this test, you are not short of choice, and provided there is enough space in your stomach, and you have no fear for glut, DIG IN!
Overall, my personal ratings is that, Foh Sum is within the class of high quality dimsum restaurant, IMHO, at par (or above) with many premium dimsum restaurants in Klang Valley or the last dimsum restaurant I had in HK.
*ps. ironically Foh Sum Dim Sum is famous for the charsiew pau and loh mai kai, which usually is reserved as the last item when test 1, 2 and 3 fails to fill up your stomach.
Personally, I prefer savory pastry more than sweet pastry.Savory is for adults & sweet is for kids. No doubts, it is a very clear sign that age is catching up.
Oven dried tomato is easy to make. It is very versatile to use in many ways. You can use it in salad, bread making, pizza or pasta. The taste is very similar to sundried tomato with a bit of smoky flavour. Instead of sundried, I oven dried it in a more control environment. The Italian love to sundried it & it is packed with flavours.
Ingredients:
A mix of red cherry tomato & yellow cherry tomato (250g)
Method:
Preheat the oven to 100’C, cut the cherry tomato into half, and put it in the oven for almost 2 hours. It needs to be oven dried slowly & you do not want to burn it.
After that, remove it from oven & cool completely. After the oven dried process completed, the tomato should weight about 100g.
You can keep the oven dried tomato in a glass jar, soaked in sunflower oil. It would be able to keep well for at least a month.
Sesame in bread is really aromatic especially good for burger bread & bread stick. As usually, sesame works well in sourdough bread after long hours of fermentation.
For the burger, I love to use pork patties. I would strongly recommend the An Xin's (安心) pork patties. It taste like a real pork meat minus all the unnecessary chemicals, unnecessary starch, unnecessary flavouring...etc.It is good for kids. We have to understand that most of the frozen processed food loaded with a lot of unnecessary ingredients. Do you know that the regular hot dog sold in the super market, only 20-30% are real meat, the rest are made of skin fat, soft bone, flour, artificial etc... As per the Jamie Oliver show, pork sausages contains more real meat ranging from 40%-60% (try to recall from my memory). In short, it means less crappy stuffs. It is OKAY for me to pay slightly more for better quality products.
BTW, the sesame bread sticks were good. A good & healthy snack for my kid. It is quite handy in the sense that I can just take a bread stick from the tupperware & she will keep quiet eating & let me have peace of mind for a while. Gals are talkative sometimes ;)
I am so crazy about bread making nowadays & trying to experiment different flour to make bread. Kamut flour is one of it. This is the 1st time I am making this "Egyptian" bread.
Kamut is an ancient type of wheat related to the durum variety used in modern bread making. Kamut is believed to be of Egyptian origin. Shortly after World War II, a Montana farmer sowed a few seed that were said to have come from the tomb of King Thot. In the late 1970s, an agronomist and biochemist called Bob Quinn became interested in this exceptional grain, which he named “kamut” after the word for “wheat” in the ancient Egyptian tongue.
I have got this organic Kamut flour from Bob's Red Mills. It is not cheap compared to regular bread flour RM3.50 per kg. It cost about RM16.50 for 500g+. These bread has a very deep wheat-y smell. Naturally, it has these beautiful yellowish colour. We are so pleased that the bread turned out so beautiful. Surprisingly the bread is soft compared to the regular artisan bread. It is not as soft as the Gardenia bread or High 5 bread, but it is slightly chewy. To me, this bread is not heavy at all. Besides, it freeze well for a fully baked bread. I definitely will make it again.
I finally found some time to update my blog. Recently, I was really busy with work & family. We just came back from Penang & Cameron Highland. My kid got the first taste of Penang street food & she had fun plucking the strawberry etc. We really enjoyed “shopping” in Cameron Highland. My hubby asks: what type of shopping in Cameron highland? It was the yummy corn, fresh veggies, jam & strawberry.I over bought the veggies & end up eating lots of veggies for the whole week. It was not that bad.
Well, let’s talk about food & let’s write about food. It helps me to de-stress.
Last Saturday, I was feeling too lazy to cook & stir fried udon was a good idea. For cooking, I normally will do the “free style” cooking; I do not really like to follow any particular recipes especially for Chinese food. Just “agak –agak” will do. Most of the time, it turns out fine. Practice make perfect. However, when come to baking, you must follow the recipes like a text book.
Ingrediants:
3 packet of Udon for 3 persons
Overnight/surplus roast pork (siu yuk)
Red & green bell pepper
Red onion
Eggs
Spring onion
Choi sum
Ginger
Sauce mixture: water, soya sauce, oyster sauce, a little bit of sugar, Chinese wine, sesame oil, a little bit of chicken cube/powder.
Method: This was all done in a single wok.
Fry ginger, add red onion, add siu yuk, add bell pepper, add udon, add eggs, add sauce mixture,put the choi sum on top of the udon, at this point, you do not need to stir, just cover it with lid. When time up for the udon to cook through, just sprinkle the spring onion on top, off the fire. Serve & enjoy.
This is quite luxury dish. It has the 'wow" factor. The most important thing is that the fish must be extremely fresh. In this case, I am using a 1kg red snapper because my sister was coming over for dinner. It was a pleasant surprise for her.
Recipes:
2 eggs white
4kg of coarse salt
1 kg of whole fish cleaned & gutted. Skin on. Do not make any cut on the fish. Rub the fish with olive oil.
A bunch of rosemary & a bunch of thyme & basil to stuff each cavity
Actually, it is quite simple. Just give it a try. Whisk the eggs white till soft peak & mix with all the rock salt. Lay the rock salt on the baking tray put the fish in the middle of the tray. Then, cover the whole fish with the rock salt.Bake the fish at 200’C for about 35 minutes. That’s simple, isn’t it? By the way, it is absolutely delicious.
You can serve this fish with green salad & bread. Nice~
Of course, you can’t end the dinner without any dessert. Ta-da, this time I have served up some fresh cupcakes made with Cameron Highland Strawberry. My 5 years old plucked the strawberry herself. She was kinda proud of her contribution.
My friend bought us some flower crabs. These are local caught flower crab. You can only harvest 30% meat from these crab. They had less meat...
About
What can I say, all it took was passion and interest (not to mention some pretty cool ingredients too!) and here are my cakes,... some sold to friends , some are gifts, and all I can say, all inquiries are welcomed!
A working mum who love to cook and bake. I was a hobby baker, and now, almost a pro-baker. My husband loves cooking too. Both of us would like to share our hobbies in cooking & baking with friends. To contact us, please call 6012-3813896.
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