Saturday, December 26, 2009

christmas lunch at fairfield

auntie supp man
really went all out to cook us a grand lunch. there were 12 of us but it was enough to feed 20! first off, here're some asparagus and blanched french beans with garlic and oyster sauce.
stuffed roasted chicken rolls with sundried tomatoes
the table setting
brandied strawberry
summer fruit
tiramisu, mango pudding
passionfruit cheesecake
honey glazed ham

roast vegtable salad
cocktail shrimp

mince pies!

frozen is good

to buy fresh bhindi [ladies fingers / okra] it would cost us $14.90 a kilo, but these frozen [baby] ones are $6.40 a kilo, which we discovered at Hong Kong grocery at Clayton Rd. perfect for our fish curry. we used delichef's fish curry paste, which has everything in it mixed up perfectly for you, so all we needed to do was add the fish, okra, and water.
we used the cheapest fish ever - vietnamese basa fillets [also frozen] and boiled it all up with the fish curry paste. the paste made a very yummy sauce but the baby okra got overcooked and mushy. so far, everything from deli chef turned out delicious, so i highly recommend it.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

delichef's rendang mix

We're still in the process of using up all our Delichef pastes [from Cosway], so this time it was for "rendang" which is a malay dry coconutty curry. I made this "rendang" using lamb instead of the traditional beef, but it didn't turn out too bad. The rendang paste was excellent - fragrant, thick and flavourful. there was no need to add oil or salt at all, and the instructions were so easy - just fry the meat with the paste until fragrant, then add water and simmer until the meat is cooked! Perfect with white rice.

Thursday, December 17, 2009

tandoori mix by Maggi

this mix was brought from Malaysia, I reckon we bought it in January then forgot to use it, then left it at my parent's place, and they didn't use it either, so on his recent trip back, Gavin brought a whole lot of them here. So, although it was expired, we used it anyway! and it was good! the instructions were so simple: just marinade the meat in the powder mix and yoghurt, then grill/roast it for half an hour.
it turned out so tasty and juicy, much nicer than the chicken tandoori from Suku's [in SS14]. Hmm perhaps it's bcoz ours was succulent and we used maryland fillet instead of breast meat. I wish we could have it again but that was our only tandoori mix packet! it's perfect with sliced red onion, a squeeze of lime juice and warm naan.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

malay food

curries are not just eaten by indians, the malays love it too! above is a fish curry with a slightly sourish sauce. it's all meant to be eaten with rice, so lotsa gravy is always good.
and here're some ladies fingers.
and below, some fried chicken boxing style. all these were from Cargas Cafe in Penang.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

ratatouille with pasta

Ratatouille doesn't go very well with pasta..at least, not what i made. perhaps I didn't follow the directions well eonugh but mine really didn't taste that great. i wonder what Remy would've thought of it...

Monday, November 16, 2009

if only we could get the best of all countries and make one super mega good country...
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Sunday, November 08, 2009

teriyaki chicken

this is simple and yummy with rice.

marinade your chicken in

5 TBSP japanese soy sauce
3TBSP mirin
1 TBSP sugar [mixed until dissolved]

overnight, then grill them until cooked. any sort of chicken can be used, it's usually breast fillet cubes on a stick but works just fine with drummets which are cheaper!

Friday, November 06, 2009

mamak at home in clayton

tonight gav and i made channa masala [chickpea curry] from scratch and had it with "cheat's roti" and instant teh tarik from a packet. the channa masala was quite easy to make, I used a recipe I got online that was really easy. The steps are simple enough- just fry up some cumin seeds till they "pop", then add the garlic, onion, chopped chilli, tomato paste, coriander powder, turmeric powder, garam masala, ginger, salt and chilli powder and cook till the oil comes to the top. I didn't quite see any oil coming to the top but when i felt that it was going to get burnt, i quickly tipped in the chopped fresh tomato and can of chickpeas and some water.

for the cheat's roti, we bought some coles home brand puff pastry from the freezer section and pan fried it on medium heat! just cut a big sheet into 4 and cook till golden brown. it requires a few flips to make sure neither side gets burnt.
it really did taste almost like real roti canai. seruiosly! try it if you don't believe me. they are made of esentially the same things anyway...roti consists of flour and ghee, puff pastry of flour and butter. we wiped the non stick pan with a little oil but I reckon that wasn't necessary as puff pastry is full of oil anyway. a few got slightly burnt so you have to watch it! probably not the healthiest thing around though. but it tasted good enough.

also, we baked a few chicken wings marinated in curry powder, salt and turmeric in our little toaster oven. the dry heat made the chicken skin crisp up and taste just like fried chicken from the local mamak...well, almost! all this and our instant teh tarik from a packet made us feel as if we were back home....

Tuesday, November 03, 2009

typical at home food

this above, is our "version" of auntie uma's ring of fire pasta. we didn't quite stick to her recipe coz we couldn't get cili padi here so we substituted with a jalapeno pepper that wasn't quite as hot. garlic and chopped chillis are fried in butter and oil, then i added ikan bilis chopped into tiny pieces. a food processor would've been useful but we didn't have one. then, slices of sausage are added [we used "hot continental" sausage. stir that around, then add cooked pasta, then salt, pepper, italian herbs and cheese. [we used shredded tasty cheese] we also added shredded carrot, a tomato and lettuce leaves and a crumbled sao cracker at the end. don't know why that was in the recipe!
it was interestingly...tasty. but i doubt i could recreate it. every stir fried pasta is unique....

this was our lunch. we thought we'd try something german so we got some don pork sausages. dont know what they are exactly but they were from a euro looking deli. the sauerkraut and gherkins were from a jar and i didn't like the sauerkraut that much. perhaps i'm just not used to it, and we tend to reject the unfamiliar..but still, it smelled so... bad! like something was rotting..
i loved the potato salad though, made with kipflers that are perfect for this coz they keep their shape. for the potato salad, i used mayo, basil, italian herbs, lotsa black pepper and 1/2 a chopped salted egg. [that gave it a bit of an interested twist...] yum.

our dinner last night, which is more typical of us malaysian chinese. rice, stir fried asian greens [choy sum] and simmered tofu with chicken pieces and other odd vegtables lying around such as carrot, mushroom or peas. i told my (anglo) clinical educator that stir fries are the easiest things to do and you could have a stir fry everyday and not get bored. i don't think she went for that idea but it's true. just look in your fridge, take out a protein, take some vegetables, cut them into uniform pieces and stir fry with oil, garlic and onion. then add your seasonings, the sky's the limit. soy sauce, salt, chili flakes, miso paste, sesame oil, lemon juice, oyster sauce, barbecue sauce...? 9/10 times it'll be good.

the black stuff is gav's bovril "soup".

Thursday, October 22, 2009

gamjatang


I just discovered that you can boil soup in a rice cooker! did you know that? just press "cook" and it'll keep cooking until you stop it because the water's never gonna reach the level that would stop it automatically. so, in our newly obtained 2nd hand rice cooker that we got for $12,
we made this korean pork soup [gamjatang] but used pork fillet instead coz the pork ribs were too expensive. not a good move! because, for soups, it's always better to use pork with bones.

anyway, despite the meat being slightly tasteless, the soup was really tasty and we'd definitely make it again. some of the ingredients can only be found in korean grocery shops like the "doenjang" [bean paste], korean chilli flakes and korean anchovy sauce [somewhat similar to fish sauce but smells much more pungent! it's not as fiery hot as it looks, the red colour just comes from the chilli flakes.

it's perfect for a cold night but then again, even with hot weather we still like our hot steaming bowls of soup with rice. try it with kimchi on the side if possible.

Monday, October 19, 2009

instant kimchi jigae!

got this packet mix at the asian grocery at clayton [again] and all you need to do is prepare the ingredients, dump them all in and boil!
so, here we have chopped chilli, beef, mushrooms and tofu. and chinese cabbage to be put in just before serving coz they cook quickly.

sorry for the bad photo but it tasted pretty good with rice. perfect for a freezing cold night...

bakuteh pack

we bought a pack of "instant" bakuteh spices/herbs from "hong kong grocery" shop in clayton for $2. it was from malaysia, but somehow, for some inexplicable reason, it stated to use beef or chicken. which is quite silly, really! of course we used pork.
we boiled it up with some whole garlic in a ricecooker pot since we didn't have a proper soup pot. also, cooking on a hot place isn't a walk in the park!
it tasted pretty good, with tofu, mushrooms and lettuce leaves.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

teochew porridge



salty, preserved, jarred things from china are delicious with plain rice porridge.
here we have preserved "olives vegetables", preserved chilli beancurd, kimchi, fried anchovies and soy sauce minced beef.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

5 minute pizza

I dumped some tomato paste, chopped onion, garlic, ham, olives, "pizza" cheese and capsicum on these pita breads and into the toaster oven. and topped it off with black pepper. "instant" pizza!

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

kiri aluwa - sri lankan milk toffee

I've never been successful at candy making but I succeeded this time! i'm quite pleased with myself, this being my first try at this recipe. I got my first taste of this a few weeks back from a sri lankan grocery shop in Cheltenham and was hooked. I knew I had to try it myself. it's basically a fudge flavoured with cardamom and vanilla.I used this recipe. instead of a buttering the dish, I just sprayed it with canola oil. Make sure it turns a caramelly brown colour and is really thick before taking it off the heat or else it'll just taste like hardened sugar. I didn't have a candy thermometer so knowing when to take it off was tricky for me but as long as you see that it's thick and takes awhile to come back to the edge of the pan when you stir it, it should be okay. fingers crossed!

after cooling awhile in the pan, I saw that it had hardened so I turned the whole thing out onto a chopping board and cut it with a cleaver [being chinese].

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

namaste at bundoora square

We heard rave reviews about this place from an indian friend so we knew it would be good. it's right next to psarakos market at bundoora square. we came on a lonely monday night and was greeted by a very warm and friendly waiter. there were non oily papadums and yoghurty sauce for starters.
here're the samosas- crisp and warm just hot off the oil. the crust was yummy and the insides were a tasty yellow potato and pea mash. served up with a sweetish red sauce.
the lamb vindaloo came with a lot of tasty sauce. we asked for it to be "hot", being given 3 choices of mild, medium and hot. gav said we ought to have asked for "Extra hot" but this was already at my limit. the lamb pieces were tender and the sauce was very good except that it was a tiny bit too salty.
we had it all with the yellow basmati rice.
this was my favourite dish of all, the tomato bhindi. the sauce was very good, sweetish, sourish, spicy and complex. and saucy. the pieces of ladies fingers were cooked just right not mushy or overly tough. I would go back again to have this.

Monday, September 28, 2009

sparkling lemonade

i keep getting free lemons from friends whose trees are fruiting. these local lemons are not the sort you'd get from the supermarkets, their skins are so thick. I had a few big ones that I thought would be nice and juicy, only to cut them open and find that their skins were 2cm thick!
here's a nice refreshing drink to have on a hot [ish] day. melbourne appears to have regressed and gone back into winter mode for this week...
must be in mourning for its st kilda team!

boil 1 cup sugar and 1 cup water, stirring, till all sugar dissolves. let cool. mix in
1 cup lemon juice and about 1L soda water, taste a bit before adding it all to make sure it's not getting too dilute or too sweet. stir well and add ice. if it's too sweet, add more soda water.

dhal curry from scratch

after seeing how the restaurants charge $9.95 for a bowl of dhal I decided to try making my own. The ingredients are so cheap and it just doesn't take much effort. Just fry up some spices in oil, add the dhal and water and boil it till soft. I used fennel seeds, mustard seeds and cumin seeds, garlic, onions, chilli, curry powder, turmeric, coriander powder, garam masala, salt, pepper and tomatoes.
with some nice crisp hot roti, it's a great and filling breakfast!
or lunch or dinner or supper